


Whumptober (Revisited)

by Bohemian (Linguam)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-11-23 18:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 29,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20894522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linguam/pseuds/Bohemian
Summary: Malec Whumptober 2019 collection.Latest:(31) Embrace.Alec closes his eyes with a sigh. The air is cold and reeks of burnt flesh and mildew, but his final breath smells only of sandalwood.-Now complete!





	1. Shaky hands

**Author's Note:**

> **Additional warnings:** Self-harm (though no more than what the show portrays).

Magnus finds him on a rooftop near the docks.

He doesn’t approach him, doesn’t even make himself known; but he knows that Alec hears him, if only for how his grip tightens almost imperceptibly on his bow, as if fearing that Magnus would try to magic it away. Given the blood dripping from his wrist and the rather impressive puddle on the concrete floor, it is a well-founded fear.

An arrow slices through skin and air before finding its target in a small explosion of sparks, illuminating the night sky.

“Track me?” Alec’s voice is as blank as the water, gleaming in the distance.

“Jace told me,” Magnus says softly. He watches as Alec nocks another arrow. “He called me. Said that he couldn’t find you.”

The air before them lights up with another tiny flare.

Magnus slowly makes his way over to where his boyfriend stands, too close to the roof’s edge for his liking. He isn’t sure how long Alec’s been here, but it’s long enough that his knuckles are coated in a thick layer of semi-congealed blood. His hands are shaking.

Sympathy and love rattle Magnus’s lungs. He lifts a hand.

“Don’t.” Alec’s voice is harsh, cracking with fatigue. It is staggering, how hard Magnus has to fight the urge to take him in his arms and portal them someplace far away from here, far away from the responsibilities weighing too heavily on too young shoulders.

Alec reaches for another arrow. Blood trails down his wrist and drops onto the ground. Magnus is pretty sure he can see slices of loose skin.

“You should go,” Alec murmurs, taking aim.

This, Magnus knows, is not something he can fix. Not even with magic. But he is sure as hell not leaving Alec alone when he’s like this, either.

“I’d rather not.”

“Magnus—”

“Let me be here for you, Alexander, in whatever way I can. Please.”

Alec swallows. He nods, once.

They stand shoulder to shoulder, the only sound Alec’s arrows as they cleave through the air. They stand there until the sun peaks up over the horizon, until the tear-tracks on Alec’s face have long since dried and his hands are shaking so badly that he can barely keep hold of his bow.

When Magnus places a gentle hand on his arm, this time, the bow clatters to the ground. Neither of them says a word.

Together, they watch a new day dawn.


	2. Explosion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the lamest whump I've ever written *hangs head in shame*. I'm sorry. I'll do better with the next prompt.
> 
> **Additional warnings:** None whatsoever. Jace is a bit of an idiot, but that's nothing new. This is honestly more fluff than whump. I am a disgrace.

There is nothing about the house that would indicate anything being amiss. It’s just one of many two-story residential buildings on this specific street. But the moment they slip through the large double doors, every ounce of warmth leaves Magnus’s body.

The hallway before them is empty. The lights are out, but the windows are large enough to let in the last rays of sunshine. There is a room almost directly to their right, leading into what looks to be a study or waiting room, and a door further down to the left. At the end of the hallway, a broad stair leads the way to the second floor.

Magnus tentatively reaches out with his magic. No sign of life, other than his own and that of his four companions.

It doesn’t change the fact that he can taste the evil like oil in the air.

“Everyone spread out,” Alec murmurs from his right.

Clary slips into the study, Isabelle taking off towards the closed door further down the corridor. Alec meets his eye. Magnus nods, and watches as Alec and Jace walk past him and make their way upstairs.

He summons his magic and starts a sweep of the place. It’s like dragging a ship from the bottom of a mud lake with your bare hands. He isn’t supposed to be here; he and Alexander had been about to portal to Maui for a long weekend, both of them wearing thin after a month of seemingly back-to-back disasters, when the alert had gone off. Angels knew that they needed some vacation; sadly, the self-righteous bastards didn’t care. Neither did the demons, or the rogue warlocks that decided to try their hand at spell work that has been banned for centuries.

Magnus has been in a state of near-perpetual exhaustion for weeks. His magic, as frazzled and temperamental as its wielder, now skitters across the premises, shifting away from the energy residue coating the walls like a still burning scorch mark. Like something straight out of the fires of Edom itself.

“Jace!”

Magnus is upstairs, portal closing behind him, one hitched breath later.

“What the hell,” Jace gasps before him, cradling one hand to his chest.

At the end of the room is a small altar, strewn with papers and knocked-over vials—and, soaring above it, a black orb. The orb is pulsating, expanding and then retracting like a lung greedy for more air, growing larger, larger—

Magnus throws out his magic just as it explodes.

The entire building shakes, the floor quaking underneath his feet. The impact wrenches the bones from his body—for a moment, he is erased, shattered and drowning in the avalanche of the pure, demonic power that crashes into him. Each fracture in his shield spreads like a fissure through his soul.

He slams into something solid, jarring him back into himself. Gritting his teeth, Magnus shoves back against the demonic force, opening up every channel, whatever scraps he has left, magic coursing through him like a stream of fire. The black flood rages against him, billowing higher and darker like the smoke of an erupting volcano.

It disappears so suddenly that Magnus stumbles forward. Hands on his hip and shoulder are the only things that keep him from crumbling to the floor. His arms fall to his sides as if yanked down by gravity itself. The remaining tatters of his shield dissolve.

He collapses against Alec’s chest, adrenaline wrenching the breath from his lungs.

Alec’s grip tightens.

“You okay?” He sounds as winded as Magnus feels.

Magnus coughs to clear his throat.

“I’m all right.”

Alec squeezes his hip. Magnus can physically feel the transformation from worried boyfriend to pissed off commander. Based on Jace’s wince, so can he.

“What happened?” Izzy demands from the doorway. Clary is beside her, twin kindjals in hand.

Jace’s palms are up.

“Sorry, my bad.” His mismatched eyes flicker to Magnus. “You good?”

Magnus suspects that it’s at least partly an attempt to placate Alec, but he appreciates it nonetheless.

He waves him off with an almost-steady hand.

“No need to worry on my account, Blondie. However,” he can’t help but add, eyebrow rising. “If you are to keep touching unfamiliar, _clearly_ magically infused objects, maybe I should join these outings more often.”

Instead of a snarky response, Jace’s brow creases in a frown.

“Your nose is bleeding.”

Alec appears in front of him so fast that Magnus’s vision ripples. His boyfriend wipes at the skin underneath Magnus’s nose with gentle fingers; he would object, if Alec hadn’t looked so concerned.

“We’re leaving,” Alec declares, unsurprisingly.

Magnus opens his mouth, but Jace beats him to it.

“Alec, come on…”

The look Alec throws his parabatai is one Magnus has only ever seen him use on stuck-up Clave members that have openly scorned their relationship. Magnus almost feels bad for the Herondale boy.

“Alexander.” He waits until hazel eyes return to him. “I’m fine. A byproduct of a sudden, powerful charge of magic, that’s all. It’s perfectly natural.”

It’s true enough, just not the entire truth. Sadly, Alec is just as aware of Magnus’s dwindling energy supplies as Magnus is aware of Alec’s; his boyfriend is even more of a grouchy, overprotective bear than usual, nowadays.

“We’re leaving,” Alec repeats, glaring Jace into silence. “We came here to find proof that Watts was meddling in dark magic, and we found it. You guys deal with it; we’re going on vacation.”

After a short argument about transportation—_I am perfectly capable of making a portal, Alexander_—they finally find themselves at their bungalow on Maui. And, if Alec spends the entire evening pampering him far more than what the situation calls for, well. Magnus is certainly not going to complain.


	3. Delirium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back on the whump-train! Thank God. This chapter is pretty ambiguous. I'll leave the final interpretation up to you guys.
> 
> **Additional warnings:** Heavy angst ahoy. (Former) character death. Possible hallucinations. If you're feeling hesitant, check the end notes for specifics.

The leaves are changing color. The ones that hang above him are a deep red, but there are others that blur together in his periphery, a mesh of orange, brown, yellow. He’s pretty sure that the last time he stopped to look at the trees, the day when _before_ turned into _after,_ they were green.

It must be fall again.

“You need to heal yourself, Magnus.”

Magnus tilts his head. Twigs dig into his cheek, but it’s a discomfort he can quite happily live with for the sight that greets him.

Alec sits leaning against a giant oak tree. He is in the patrol gear that he rarely used from the moment he became Inquisitor, hair windswept, the Deflect rune dark against his pale skin, eyes burning with familiar intensity. He looks exactly like he did when they first met.

“I miss you,” Magnus whispers. It’s the only thing he’s been able to say, the only words he’s been able to reach, since he woke up in the meadow to Alexander’s voice calling his name, god knows how long ago now.

“I know.” Alec’s voice barely carries on the breeze, but Magnus can see his lips form the words in the predawn light. “I miss you, too.”

Magnus laughs. It lodges in his chest like a bullet, just underneath his ribcage.

Did he get shot? He doesn’t remember.

He attempts to heave himself up from the forest floor. Pain washes through him like water from a fresh mountain spring, knocking him back down. He breathes it in like a man dying of thirst.

“Don’t do that,” Alec chides. “You’ll only hurt yourself worse.”

Magnus’s breath hitches on an aborted laugh.

“It’s so good to hear your voice.” His tongue is numb but he perseveres. “I wish you were really here.”

When he first opened his eyes and saw his husband stare down at him, he thought he had died and almost cried with relief. Then the ache registered, as did the growing damp spot of stickiness underneath his palm. Blood loss is a cruel mistress.

The spring overflows, welling down his cheeks.

“Life has been dreadful without you, Alexander.”

“I _am_ here, Magnus,” Alec says, but Magnus knows better. Will never forget the call, the rush to the infirmary, the hollowness in his soul and the emptiness in his heart when it was clear that, despite all of the considerable magic he possessed, it still wouldn’t be enough.

A puff of wind brushes across his face, curling around his cheek.

Magnus’s eyes fly open.

Alec is kneeling on the ground next to him. This close, Magnus can see every fleck of green in his hazel eyes.

Beautiful.

“You need to heal yourself,” his husband repeats. A dog with a bone, even in Magnus’s murky mind.

“You missed our fiftieth anniversary, you know.” He tries to raise an eyebrow but can’t quite dredge up the energy for it. “I had some pretty big plans for that one.”

Alec’s lips twitch into that half-smirk that Magnus has only seen in photographs and cruel dreams for the past however-long-it’s-been. Are they still in the twenty-first century? Time lost all meaning the moment he lost Alexander. There is only _before_ and _after,_ now.

“You started planning our fiftieth before we even got to the twentieth?” Alec’s voice drips with fondness, hazels sparkling in amusement. Magnus wants to reach out, to feel his husband’s cheek against his palm even though he knows this isn’t real, but his arm is too heavy.

He is so tired.

The wind’s embrace is cold, but he leans into it anyway. His eyes close.

“Will you stay?”

“Of course I’ll stay,” Alec says softly.

A tendril of heat trickles through his mind, warming him, filling the empty well where his magic usually resides. The last thing he hears is his husband’s voice.

“I’ll always stay with you.”

When Magnus blinks his eyes open next time, the loft’s ceiling stares back at him. Alexander is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Magnus is severely injured and hallucinates (or does he?) Alec appearing, despite his husband having been dead for decades.


	4. Human Shield

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which anything is possible in the Seelie realm.
> 
> **Additional warnings:** None. Just grab the popcorn (or the snack of your choice) and settle in for some double whump.

“Let him go,” Alec growls.

From atop her throne of thorns, the Seelie Queen tilts her head. Her lips are pursed in a bland smile.

“But that would ruin the game.”

“This isn’t a _game_,” Alec grits out. “It’s an act of war.”

The Seelie Queen giggles.

“Silly boy. This isn’t _war._ We’re just playing.” She turns her attention to her left. “Aren’t we, Magnus?”

Magnus, for his part, glares at her from where he is half-melted into the greenery wall. The slender branches that have weaved themselves around his body are overflowing with colorful flowers; new ones bud and bloom before Alec’s very eyes, swallowing the man he loves inch by rapid inch.

He came here thinking that they had the upper hand, and now Magnus might pay for it with his life.

“Alexander.”

His eyes snap up. With how the branches are wrapped around his chest, each breath must be excruciating, but Magnus still smiles at him—small and pained, but genuine.

“It’s okay.”

Alec shakes his head. Bile crawls up his throat.

“No.” He turns back to the Seelie Queen. “No. I’m not playing your sick game.”

She shrugs. A casual gesture.

“You can always choose not to participate.” She brushes her finger over a tiny bird, perched on the armrest. “But then you lose. And so does he.”

Alec looks back at the vegetation holding Magnus hostage. He takes a step to the side, and then another. The wilderness moves with him, keeping his boyfriend between them like a shield.

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’m not doing anything,” the Seelie Queen drawls. “The Lovelock is starved for companionship. It won’t release him until there is no love left to devour—or until you pierce its core. I have already explained the rules.”

“Please.” Alec looks into those ageless child’s eyes, shimmering with faint amusement. “I’ll give you whatever you want, just let him go.”

“His faith is in your hands, Alec Lightwood. Not mine.”

Alec shakes his head again.

“I _can’t._”

“Of course you can,” Magnus says. His voice is strained but steady. “I’ve seen you make shots like this one hundreds of times.”

There are no “shots like this one,” though, and they both know it.

“Play the game,” the Seelie Queen coos. “Or watch your lover die.”

“I’ve had worse,” Magnus says, as if that is supposed to make Alec feel better. “I’ll be okay.”

Alec hates the Seelie Queen for putting them in this situation, hates Magnus for encouraging him to partake in her games: but, most of all, he hates his hands for how steady they are when he raises his bow.

Magnus meets his gaze with understanding, offering absolution that Alec doesn’t deserve for what he’s about to do.

“I trust you,” Magnus says, words more breath than actual sound.

“I’m sorry,” Alec whispers, and releases.

The arrow burrows itself into Magnus’s chest.

~ ~ ~

It’s been a long time since Magnus was rendered dumb with emotional fatigue. But then, this has been a rather eventful day.

“Thank you, Catarina,” he murmurs. His voice sounds flat even to his own ears.

Catarina’s hand lingers on his shoulder for a moment before she turns and leaves the bedroom without a word. Magnus is grateful; the last thing he needs when he pushes himself up off of the bed with sluggish, jerky movements is an audience.

His chest twinges with every inhale, but the ache is definitely preferable to drowning in your own blood. Catarina did a marvelous job, as usual. The wound won’t even scar.

But there are other wounds, worse than physical ones, that still need to be tended to.

He finds Alec in the living-room. He’s sitting on the couch, back against the bedroom, head bowed and hunched in on himself. His hands, Magnus notices when he rounds the couch, are still streaked with Magnus’s blood.

Magnus lowers himself down next to him.

“Alexander?”

Alec doesn’t look up from his hands.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice is hoarse, as if he’s been crying, and Magnus closes his eyes. Rage wells up inside him, the kind that he hasn’t felt since the last time he saw his father. If he could, he would burn down the entire Seelie realm.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says softly. “You saved my life.”

Alec shakes his head, lips pressed into a thin line. When he lifts his head, his eyes are blank—a mask of forced stoicism that makes Magnus want to cry.

He puts his hands over Alec’s trembling ones. His boyfriend flinches, but doesn’t look at him.

“Darling, please talk to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Alec says again. His voice cracks.

“I know. I’m sorry, too.” Magnus squeezes Alec’s hands. “For pushing you. But you did what you had to do. Thank you.”

Pain and disgust ripple across Alec’s face. He is so pale that, for a second, Magnus thinks he might be sick.

“Do _not_ thank me for shooting you,” he croaks, and Magnus shakes his head.

“That’s not what I’m thanking you for.”

“I hurt you.” Alec puts his head in his hands, dislodging Magnus’s hold. His entire body shudders as if repelled by the words. “Angels, I _shot_ you…”

“I know,” Magnus shushes him. He lays a hand on his boyfriend’s leg, thumb moving back and forth in an attempt to sooth. “It’s all right, Alexander. _I’m_ all right. I don’t blame you.”

“I’m sorry,” Alec breathes, and Magnus closes his eyes.

There is nothing he can say that will make this better, at least not right now. So, he leans his head against his boyfriend’s shoulder and listens to Alec’s hitched breathing, how he tries and fails to suppress his shivering.

It’s not as deadly as an arrow to the chest. But it hurts that much more.


	5. Gunpoint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one completely ran away from me, jesus. Will get to answering comments soon! <3
> 
> **Additional warnings:** Body-control (i.e. one person controlling another person's body movements). Obviously non-consensual. Nothing sexual, though.

Alec throws the loft’s door open, heart trying to escape through his throat.

“Magnus?”

_Need you._ That’s all the text had said, and that was all the incentive Alec needed to pass the morning roster off to Izzy and rush from the Institute and towards Brooklyn.

“Magnus?” Alec calls again, when there is no response. He closes the door with a frown. His fingers fold around the hilt of his Seraph blade, strapped to his thigh. Something sharp and cloying tickles his nostrils. It smells like incense, but it’s not one of Magnus’s usual ones.

When the hallway opens up into the living-room, Alec freezes. At the corner of the room, by the balcony windows, Magnus is… fighting, against the air—that shimmers.

Force field.

Alec’s blade is up just as a man appears from the direction of the apothecary. He’s short and thin, almost petite, with lanky brown hair falling into chestnut eyes. There is a gun in his left hand.

“Ah, so you’re the boyfriend,” he drawls. His eyes, shrewd, calculating, dipped in insanity, rake over Alec’s form, assessing.

Alec’s grip around his blade tightens.

“Who are you?”

“Pierce Morrison.” The man waves his gun in some parody of a ‘hat’s off to ya’ -gesture. “I’m an old client of Magnus’s. I would say it’s a pleasure but I doubt either of you would agree.”

Alec only just manages to swallow the fury he feels at the thought of Magnus inviting this man into their home, only for him to get attacked.

“Look,” he says. “Whatever it is that you’re planning, don’t. It’s not going to end well for you. Release Magnus and we can all sit down and talk.”

Pierce’s entire expression splinters into a look of such visceral hatred that Alec almost reels back.

“No amount of _talking_ is going to give me back what I lost,” he snarls. He raises the gun and points it at Alec’s chest.

Alec swallows. His Speed rune is still active, but he can’t outrun a bullet—especially not one that is less than ten feet away and pointed at his heart. On the other side of the room, Magnus is pounding at the barrier, face lined in distress. His mouth moves, lips forming Alec’s name, but no sound comes.

“Okay,” Alec says carefully. “So what do you want?”

“Simple. I want justice.” Pierce stalks towards him with a feline grace that Alec did not expect from the man. The gun is steady, even as his voice wavers. “Justice for my Elena, and our baby girl.”

Alec considers his options. Talking won’t get him anywhere, if the look in Pierce’s eyes in anything to go by. From this distance, he _might_ be able to dodge a lethal shot—but Pierce still needs to be closer for him to use his blade, and the closer he gets, the less chance of avoiding a bullet through the heart.

Pierce smirks, as if reading his thoughts.

“I suppose that this is a good time to tell you that the shield, keeping your beloved boyfriend contained? Not only is it tied to me, but it also comes with a nifty little kill-switch. Kill me, and the magic kills Magnus.”

It could be a lie, but one glance at Magnus’s dejected face confirms that it’s not.

Pierce’s grin widens as Alec lowers his blade.

“Good man. Now, let’s get on with bringing my family some justice, shall we?”

He closes the distance between them, flips the gun in his hand.

And offers it to Alec.

Alec stares at it.

“Take the gun,” Pierce says.

Alec gawks at him, convinced now more than ever that the guy is insane. He opens his mouth—

His Seraph blade clanks to the floor.

Startled, Alec blinks down at the weapon, and then can only watch with mounting horror as his arm rises and his fingers reach out, curling around the gun lying in Pierce’s palm.

“What the hell?”

Pierce hums. His eyes sparkle.

“That smell in the air? A compellent. To make you more suggestible. I actually got it from Magnus, years ago. Of course, I’ve made some adjustments since then.”

A sick feeling spreads through Alec’s stomach.

Behind the shield, Magnus’s mouth is moving, hands weaving frantically.

“He took my family from me,” Pierce says softly. His face has gone pale. “Now he’s going to know what that feels like. To see the one he loves die and being powerless to stop it.”

“What are you—”

“Point the gun at your head.”

Alec blanches—even as his arm jerks up, twisting so that the muzzle is pointed at his own head. He can feel it slither in his muscles—that cloying incense, like ink, gliding over his bones. Like the demon that made him kill Clary’s mom. Only this time, he’s fully awake.

He makes the mistake of glancing towards the windows. Magnus has gone gray-faced, eyes unglamoured and wide in terror.

No. Alec has never been good at fighting for himself, but he’ll fight tooth and nail for the ones he cares about. Magnus is _not_ going to see him die like this.

The gun in his hand trembles.

Pierce snickers. A bead of sweat rolls down his temple.

“That’s cute, but love won’t help you. It didn’t help my Elena.” All joviality leaves his eyes. “Shoot yourself.”

The words seize Alec’s muscles. His finger jerks to rest on the trigger. His other arm is a leaden weight at his side. He tries to move his head away from the line of fire, and can’t. On the other side of the room, Magnus is pushing against the barrier, snares of red magic snapping wildly around him.

Alec grits his teeth.

No.

“I said,” Pierce growls, palm pressed against his temple. “Shoot yourself.”

Maybe it’s the clashing of sparks, but Alec almost imagines fissures in the shield. His entire arm shakes.

“Shoot yourself!” Pierce roars, just as thunder cleaves through the air.

Alec’s finger twitches.

A flair of brightness.

Nothing.

~ ~ ~

Magnus stares at the words. He knows the language, and yet doesn’t recognize the words before him. The volume in his lap is a thick one—thick and old. Maybe even older than he is. There are piles of other ones like it on either side of the armchair that he’d dragged into the bedroom, something to pass the time while he waits. He needs to figure out how what happened was ever possible, and find a way to make sure that it never happens again.

He’s still shaking. He doesn’t think he’ll ever stop.

Catarina would say that he needs to rest, and she’d be right. But all he sees when he closes his eyes, whenever he lets his mind wander, is Alec, wide-eyed and white-faced, pointing a gun at his own head. Alec, who currently lies on their bed, motionless and pale, the same as he has for the past four days. His chest lifts and dips, offering continued proof of life, but Magnus still has to remind himself that, when the bullet snapped Alec’s head back, it didn’t actually kill him.

He’d sent for Catarina while Pierce was still screaming from the flames. The entire loft—the entire block, Catarina told him later—shook as Magnus crashed onto all fours by Alec’s crumbled body.

There was so much blood. He knew that head wounds bled a lot, but that knowledge offered no reassurance when it was Alexander bleeding out before him. It had taken Catarina three sessions to completely heal the damage, even with Izzy and Clary taking turns to give her strength, and even with the copious amounts of _iratzes_ applied by Jace.

“If he hadn’t fought the possession, it would’ve been a lot worse,” Catarina had told him. “But, even though the aim was off-center, the bullet still went deep. We won’t know the full extent of the damage until he wakes.”

It’s been four days. Magnus doesn’t know if he can take another.

But he will, if he has to. He’ll wait however long Alec needs, be it weeks or months or years, because he _will_ wake up and, when he does, Magnus will be here. That thought, that promise, is the only thing keeping him from hunting down every client he has ever had, the only thing keeping his magic from leveling the entire city to the ground.

He barely registers that the room is rumbling or that the lights have started flickering again. But he does hear Alec’s breath hitch.

The book in his lap falls to the floor as he lurches forward, over-balancing.

“Alexander?”

Alec’s eyebrows are pulled down in a small frown. His hand twitches restlessly on the sheets. Magnus grabs it, squeezing it so hard he’s afraid he might break it but not being able to stop himself.

Alec moans softly, pressing his cheek into the pillow.

“Shh, take it easy, my love,” Magnus shushes, relief quivering up his throat. “You’re all right.”

“Magnus.” It’s mouthed more than spoken, but it’s still the best thing Magnus has heard in four days. The tears that he hasn’t allowed himself to shed fall freely down his cheeks now.

“Yes, it’s me,” he whispers. “Can you open your eyes for me?”

Alec’s face scrunches up, lined with pain, but those watery, bleary hazels are the most beautiful sight Magnus has ever seen.

“There you are.”

Alec gazes at him languidly. Magnus can read the confusion in the crease between his eyes and knows that he isn’t fully aware yet.

Alec opens his mouth—only to wince and squeeze his eyes shut with another breathy moan.

Worry wells in Magnus’s lungs. He reaches out with his free hand, touching his fingers to Alec’s temple. A string of red emerges and Alec exhales shakily. Magnus keeps pulling the pain out and, when he’s done, cards his fingers through Alec’s hair, thumb evening out the remaining creases on his forehead.

“Better?”

“Yeah.” Slits of hazel emerge in a pale face. “You okay?”

A shaky laugh spills over Magnus’s lips, too reminiscent of a sob. He brings up their joined hands and brushes his lips over Alec’s knuckles.

“Much better now that you’re awake.” He manages a watery smile. “You gave me quite the scare, Alexander.”

It’s clear from Alec’s dazed expression that he still isn’t really tracking. His thumb twitches to wipe clumsily at Magnus’s tears.

“Sorry.”

Magnus shakes his head.

“Not your fault, my love.” His fingers travel down Alec’s eyebrow to cup a cool cheek. “You came back to me. That’s all that matters.”

Alec pushes into Magnus’s palm. His eyes close.

“Always come back to you,” he mumbles, and, for a moment, Magnus can’t breathe with how his chest seems to cave in on itself. One day, it’s going to be outside of their control, but not today. Not for many years to come.

Magnus squeezes Alec’s hand, still resting against his own cheek.

“I love you, Alexander.”

“Love you, too,” Alec slurs, breaths evening out in sleep.

Magnus slumps forward until his head is pillowed on Alec’s chest, sighing. They are alive, Alec is safe, and remembers him.

It might not be much, but, for now, it is enough.


	6. Dragged Away

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Descriptions of drowning. If that's a trigger for you, I would advise against reading this one.
> 
> Also, lol, I would be amiss if I didn't acknowledge Tentacletober's influence on this one (though the ones that feature here aren't nearly as friendly). So, thank you!

“Magnus!”

Magnus hears his boyfriend’s shout but he can’t see him from where he lies, thrashing on the shore. Not that it matters; Alec is on the other side of the battlefield. Too far away to help him.

He bucks against his restraints, but no amount of jerking and kicking is enough to dislodge the tentacles around his wrists and ankles. Sand fills the insides of his shirt and pants, chafing against his skin as he’s dragged further away from the others. He opens his mouth, an incantation on his lips—

And is submerged in ice.

Water crams itself down his lungs. His muscles burn as panic seizes him, his thrashing getting frantic as the surface slips further away. Tentacles snake up his arms and legs, locking knees and elbows. The one around his waist tightens its hold, making him gasp. Water wells up his throat. He can’t move. He can’t breathe.

His father’s voice slithers through his mind.

_Control, my boy, is not for demons such as you and I. You have great power in you. What you need to learn is to unleash it._

Magnus clings to the words, the calm guidance that they offer. He reaches inside himself, past the panic, past the restraints and walls he has erected and refined for his magic over the centuries, until he finds the fires and darkness of Edom.

It consumes him.

He burns, both inside and out. His skin hisses, vibrates off of his flesh, dissolving him. Wailing pounds against his ears, rakes over his bones.

Quiet. All sound gone, like it got sucked out of existence.

For a moment, he just drifts. He can barely make out the light of the surface, so far away. There is water in his body, filling the void left behind by such an intense discharge of magic. His body is heavy, but he is weightless.

There is something he should remember, but it, too, is too far away.

Lightness tickles his senses. Magnus closes his eyes.

Something tugs at his arm—the sea monster returning to finish him off. He doesn’t care. He’s floating. There is no more pain.

Cold rips him from oblivion’s warm embrace. Harsh light stings his eyes and makes him shiver. His stomach contracts, and then his body turns inside out—that’s the only explanation for how everything inside of him pushes its way up his throat. Every attempt at drawing breath burns, resulting only in more of himself spilling over his lips. He feels like he’s drowning all over again.

Vaguely, he registers something moving up and down his back. There is a tremor, vibrating against his ears, that he eventually recognizes as words.

“Easy, that’s it, you’re okay, I got you, you’re okay…”

He coughs out a groan. Spews up more water. Finally, there is air.

“Alexander?” he murmurs, tongue slipping over the syllables. He hardly recognizes the garbled sound as his own voice. He’s leaning against a soggy, firm wall, radiating heat. Lips press into his forehead.

“Yeah. It’s okay. I got you.”

Magnus clears his throat, coughs again.

“Let’s not do that again anytime soon.”

Alec’s hold tightens. Being encircled by Alec’s arms like this doesn’t feel restrictive. All Magnus feels is safe.

He drags his eyes open, wincing at the wind trying to rub the salt into his optic nerve. At first, he thinks he’s hallucinating, but no. The lake’s surface is definitely lower than it had been before.

“Did I…”

“Yeah.” Alec’s breath is hot against his chilled skin. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

Magnus is too tired to question him—definitely too tired to feel concerned about having magically vaporized half a lake. It’ll just have to be a problem for tomorrow.

Sprawling on the ground, flopping wet and covered in sand, is unbecoming for anyone, especially the High Warlock of Brooklyn. But, just this once, Magnus decides not to care about decorum, and instead closes his eyes, and relaxes into his boyfriend’s warm embrace.


	7. Isolation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** This one was mostly written during a pretty severe episode of dissociation, so, if that's triggering for you, be aware of that.
> 
> On another note, I'm finally caught up with the prompts now!

Water scalds his skin but doesn’t touch him. His core is a tundra, frozen and barren. There is life there, he knows. Somewhere. If only he could find it.

Above him, there is noise. The sun shines. There is laughter, warmth, being held, being loved. But, down here, there is only the cold.

When his feet halt, his mind lurches. His hand bumps against something hard—a desk—fingers clenching around the edge. It digs into his palm, stings across his mind in singsong, then fades. His chest rises, trembles, sinks, and he sinks back under with it.

The pencil quivers between his fingers. At its tip, swirling letters emerge, letters that he recognizes, forming words that he does not.

The pencil lies on the table. His palms are flat against the desk. His stomach tenses. His arms go rigid—he pushes upright. His spine straightens, his knees lock, his feet firm on the floor, if he could feel them. He falls forward—one step, two—and a shelf stands before him.

His arm rises. His fingers uncurl—his fingers curl, around a palm-sized glass jar. His arm bends, his hand, the one with the jar, moves towards his chest. His hips shift—around, away, back to where he was. His body follows.

He sits in the chair. Shadows climb the walls, seem to grow and fall in front of his very eyes. One of them moves and then stands before him—a mirage of black, except for two pale hands.

“Magnus.”

It takes him a moment to realize why it sounds familiar. Under the surface, words don’t exist. Neither do names.

He hums. Or, he thinks to hum. The line between thinking and doing is yet another thing that doesn’t exist down here.

“Did you eat today?”

He can’t remember, but he must have. He doesn’t feel hungry.

He doesn’t feel.

There is a blotch of white in front of him.

“Come on.” Maggots—fingers—wriggle. They look like maggots. The ones you find on corpses. It would be disturbing, but there are no feelings underneath the surface. Only whispers of them.

“Is that safe to leave?”

Magnus stares at their hands. White and caramel, overlapping, fitting although they shouldn’t. He wishes he could feel it.

His eyes fall on the edge of the desk. The wood is dark. He remembers when he got it, but not now. Piles of books, papers, pencils, jars. He knows all of these items, but not right now. Right now, they are abstract memories of things he saw decades, maybe even centuries, ago.

There is a cauldron—metal or steel he doesn’t know, it doesn’t matter, it is rust-brown—and in it, a thick, shimmering liquid, like melted copper. It smells like cinnamon, but not. He has no idea what it is.

“Probably.”

His lungs stutter. He sees one reality but lives in the echoes of another.

His body moves and his mind drifts. He’s sinking again.

He blinks. There is a low, wooden table before him. On top of it, an iPad. Not his. On the other side is an armchair. Blue. A yellow twin to its left.

His fingers are curled around a mug. Steam wafts from it, languid and amorphous, like him. He watches as the mug floats closer, jarringly slow. The liquid slipping across his lips stings, but it doesn’t hurt.

“Careful. That’s still hot.”

Pale fingers encircle his forearm, bringing the mug down, and that’s when he realizes.

Alexander.

He tries to find words—to pry them from their suspended animation, reheat them, bring them back to life, even though he is still frozen.

“You can go.”

There is no movement above the surface. He closes his eyes, suddenly exhausted.

“Is that what you want?”

It hurts, but he hacks a few more words from the ice.

“I know…” The thought fractures, like splintered wood. It’s an effort to drag it back when his hands are translucent. It cuts his mouth on the way out. His tongue slicks with blood. “This disturbs you.”

The stillness holds for ten seconds or ten years. To an immortal, it makes little difference. To an isolated mind, even less.

“As long as you don’t want me to leave, I’m not going anywhere.”

He’s horizontal, lying down, surrounded by cool sheets and a body, vaguely warm, when the words finally reach him.

There is a barrier between him and the world above, but Alec will bring it down—or wait, until Magnus brings it down himself, and rejoins him at the surface.

Where there is love and warmth, and he can feel his husband’s lips on his forehead.


	8. Stab Wound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, at least I _was_ all caught up with the prompts for half a day *smh*
> 
> **Additional warnings:** None.

Sometimes, Alec wonders if Magnus’s true eyes share other similarities than just their shape with their feline relatives. Like night vision, which is the only explanation for how his boyfriend can look at him from across the sparsely lit loft and go, “What happened to your shirt?”

Alec closes the door behind him and doesn’t even bother to look down at the tear. Even if it had somehow managed to slip his mind, the persisting ache in his stomach would’ve kept him from forgetting.

“Stab wound,” he says, because there is little reason not to. But when Magnus immediately rises from the armchair where he sits with a heavy tomb in his lap, expression alarmed, he raises a hand.

“Later. Can I just—shower, first.” 

Magnus’s brow is knitted in concern, but he must see something on Alec’s face, because he sinks back down into his seat.

“Of course, darling.”

The shower does little to revive him, but at least he feels cleaner. He does his best not to think—about this evening, about the conversation he knows Magnus will insist on having. Every part of him feels heavy yet empty. He just wants to sleep.

Magnus is at the dining-table when he eventually drags himself from the bathroom. Before him, there are several steaming boxes of what smells like Indian food.

“I figured you haven’t had dinner,” he says by way of explanation, while his eyes do a not-so-subtle scan of Alec’s body.

He hasn’t. He doesn’t feel much like eating, is too tired and nauseated to—but the hollow contractions of his stomach inform him that he probably should.

“Couch?”

Magnus snaps his fingers, relocating their meal, and then snaps himself into comfier clothes—his version of Alec’s sweatpants and T-shirt, which means black yoga pants and a blue tank top.

They eat in silence. Alec can feel Magnus’s eyes darting in his direction every so often, but it isn’t until they have finished eating and the leftovers have been cleared away with a careless flick of the wrist that he motions towards Alec’s stomach.

“May I?”

Denying him will only make him worry more, and Alec is too tired for an argument.

Magnus’s fingers are gentle as they trace the edge of the wound. Only a sliver of it has yet to close, but the skin around it is puckered and slightly bruised.

“This isn’t from a Shax demon,” Magnus says with a frown. He glances up at Alec. “Weren’t you hunting Shax?”

Alec leans his head against the backrest and closes his eyes.

“We were. That’s not from a demon.”

The silence shifts—the rumbling of the earth before an avalanche.

Magnus’s fingers still.

“This is from a Seraph blade.”

Alec stares at the ceiling.

“I should’ve seen it coming. There are still plenty of Shadowhunters who don’t approve of the direction we’re taking things.” He scoffs. “Most of them aren’t exactly quiet about it, either.”

Striving for big, structural changes always takes time, if it’s to be done properly, and it’s never easy. He knows this. Most of the time, it’s a push-and-pull of successes and setbacks; but some days seem to throw you all the way back to where you started. Being stabbed by a subordinate because he is “weak, perverted, unfit to lead” and “a disgrace to what it means to be a Shadowhunter,” definitely falls into the latter category.

“Someone did this to you on _purpose_?”

Alec’s eyes flick to his boyfriend. Magnus’s face is a cross between disbelief and utter horror, and he feels some of his dejection thaw into something softer.

“I’m okay, Magnus.”

It’s a lie that Magnus immediately calls him on, brow furrowed.

“No one is ‘okay’ after something like that, Alec. Please tell me that those responsible have at least been taken care of?”

“Yeah.” Alec can still feel the low hum of fury singing through the parabatai bond. More blood than Alec’s was shed tonight—though far less than what Jace had wanted. “They’re currently in Idris, awaiting trial.”

He doubts it will lead to anything. The kids in question all come from very old, very reputable family lines. A smack on the wrist, maybe a formal telling-off, and they’ll be free to go.

“Alec…”

“Can we just go to bed, please?” Alec murmurs. “I just want to sleep.”

Magnus is looking at him with so much soft concern that he feels like he’s suffocating. It’s not entirely unpleasant.

“Can I heal you?”

Alec shrugs. They both know that the fading wound on his stomach isn’t where the actual damage is, just as they know that there is no magical solution to those hurts.

“You do know that this has nothing to do with you?” Magnus murmurs later, when they’re lying in bed in the semi-dark, facing each other. “This is about _their_ ignorance, _their_ pigheadedness, _their_ fear. You have done absolutely nothing wrong. What they did to you—”

“Magnus.” Alec appreciates what he’s trying to do, but he can’t. Not tonight. Magnus seems to understand and squeezes his fingers, entwined with his own.

“Just let me say this,” he says, whisper-soft. “I love you. I believe in you. And, no matter what comes our way, I will stand by you, always, as will a lot of others. You are not alone, Alexander.”

Alec can’t but lean in and kiss him.

It will get better, he knows. Things already are. There are many who support the kind of world that he envisions—that he and his people are working so hard to create. Change is happening. He is not alone.

Some days, that world just seems to be really far away.


	9. Shackled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another one that completely ran away from me. But I quite like how it turned out, so I'm letting it slide. I do apologize for the crap ending, though. Sometimes, you just need to move on with your life ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> **Additional warnings:** None.

It takes him three days to realize that something isn’t right. At first, he thinks he might just be taking longer than normal to recharge—he’d been burning at both ends even before the mission—but when he wakes up on the third morning and feels, not only tired, but _more_ tired than the day before, that’s when he starts to worry.

It’s a quick call to Catarina and an even quicker scan to confirm that something is, indeed, very wrong.

“Something is drawing on your magic,” his friend had said, frowning. “It feels like it’s… tied to something.”

“The demon we were hunting the other day,” Clary had breathed, and Magnus’s stomach had dropped. He had caught its eye during the battle, had felt it pierce his core like a harpoon and burrow itself deep within his magic. But the pull disappeared when Alec put an arrow through its eye. Or so he’d thought.

Alec immediately banned him from using magic, which was cute, but also unnecessary, as far as Magnus was concerned.

Then he went to summon a few books he kept at one of his secondary homes and the next thing he was aware of was Alec crouching over him mumbling _no, no, no, please, not again,_ looking like he was on the verge of a panic attack.

He’d agreed not to use magic after that, if only to erase the look of terror on his husband’s face.

“He was without magic before, though,” Jace points out. They’re all camped out in the living-room, now turned into a miniature library and their base of operations. “He wasn’t dying, then.”

Catarina shakes her head.

“He was practically a Mundane, then. As a warlock, being leeched of your magic, it’s…”

Worse than dying.

Alec’s arm tightens around his waist, where they sit huddled together on the couch. Magnus doesn’t think he’s ever been cuddled this much in his entire life. Aside from the “imminent death” part, he can’t really complain.

Alec’s lips brush against his hair.

“You okay?”

Well. He can’t complain _much._

“I’m dying,” he deadpans, which is terribly unfair, because they’re all doing their best, but he’s frustrated, and terrified, despite his best efforts to convince even himself that he’s not, and he can’t _do_ anything.

The first few days, the only symptom was an increasing, persistent, lethargy. By day four, he started experiencing dizzy spells that, by the evening of day five, rendered him unable to stand up on his own without falling over. By day six, he couldn’t stand, let alone walk, without support. Now, on day eight, he is loose-limbed and weak, and can barely stay awake for longer than twenty minutes at a time. He feels like he’s starving, like his lungs are shrinking, like there’s less of _him_ left with every passing hour.

And he is so fucking cold.

Alec stiffens against him and Magnus rubs his cheek against his husband’s shoulder in apology.

“It makes no sense that they’re still connected,” Izzy says from where she’s seated on the floor. “I mean, the demon is _dead._ Where does Magnus’s magic even go?”

Add that to the pile of things they have yet to find an answer for.

A cup of fuming tea materializes in front of him. He untangles himself from his mound of blankets to reach for it. Heat seeps into his palms and he sighs.

“Thank you, Biscuit.”

Clary nods, smiling faintly. She doesn’t look at him, which means his glamor must be down again. It’s a considerate gesture that they have all adopted, except for Alec and Catarina, trying to make him feel less uncomfortable. Unfortunately, it also serves to make him even more aware of how vulnerable he is right now.

Alec nudges him to drink the tea. He doesn’t offer to help steady the cup when Magnus’s hands visibly tremble.

He is grateful for that, at least.

…

It’s hours or days later when he comes to to hushed shouting.

“I’m not saying _don’t_; I’m asking if you’re sure.”

“He’s dying, Jace. Cat says he has _a day,_ maybe less. We’ve been searching for over a week for a solution. This is the only way.”

“I hear you. I do. But, Alec, you’ll be—”

“_I don’t care._ If it helps him, whatever happens to me doesn't matter.”

“I understand.”

“Jace…”

“No, it’s fine. I get it.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Hey, I know.”

“I just—If he… I can’t live without him.”

“I _know,_ parabatai. It’s okay.”

Sound dips and disappears after that. Magnus drifts, balancing on the verge of unconsciousness disguised as sleep when a hand cups his cheek.

“Magnus.”

He drags his eyes open to find his husband kneeling before him.

“I need to head out for a bit,” Alec says. His voice is so soft that Magnus thinks he might have imagined the argument from earlier. “But I’ll be right back. You just rest for a bit, okay?”

As if that isn’t the only thing he’s been doing for the past week and however-many-days-it’s-been.

Words are buried at the bottom of the ocean and he doesn’t have an oxygen tank, but this is important, so he ignores his straining lungs and murmurs, “Be careful.”

Alec leans in and kisses his forehead.

“You’ll be okay.” It sounds like a vow. Like when they were in Edom and Alec said _I’ll stay here, with you_. It fills Magnus with dread.

“Wait for me, okay?” Alec says, the words shivering across his forehead. “A few more hours?”

Magnus’s eyes flutter closed. He wants to scream at himself, and at Alec, although he doesn’t know why. But he’s too tired.

He hardly feels Alec’s lips press another feather-light kiss onto his skin, or their whispered _I love you,_ exhaustion already claiming him again.

A few more hours. He can do that.

…

The next time he wakes, the sun is shining and the loft is quiet.

He blinks groggily. His eyes feel gritty from too much sleep, and he pulls a hand free from the blankets cocooning him to rub it away. His entire body itches with dried sweat and he wrinkles his nose at the sensation, kicking himself free of the suffocating heat. Breathing in, he relishes in the way his lungs expand, clearing the cobwebs from his mind. His magic hums contentedly underneath his skin, stretching through him like a sunbathing cat—

Magnus freezes.

He shoots up, distantly notes that it doesn’t make him dizzy, and sees Alec sitting on the floor by the couch, watching him.

Neither of them says a word. Magnus takes in every detail of his husband’s face, from his paler-than-usual complexion to the dark circles under his eyes and the five o’clock shadow peppering his cheeks and jaw, to the Deflect rune on his neck—

The Deflect rune.

Silver. Not black.

_If it helps him, whatever happens to me doesn't matter._

Just like that, Magnus is drowning again.

“What did you do?”

“What I had to do,” Alec says. His voice is rough. “What I needed to do to save you.”

Before Magnus can ask what he means, Alec closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they’re no longer hazel, but black.

Magnus’s throat goes dry.

_Demon._

“You’re.” His voice cracks. “You…”

His husband offers a trembling smile.

“You’re not dying anymore,” he says, as if that is all there is to it, and Magnus opens his mouth to reprimand him, or quite possibly scream, because of _all_ the reckless, foolish, dangerous things he could have done—

Then he realizes that Alec is still sitting on the floor, then _why_ Alec is still sitting on the floor—why he’s made no move to reach for him, or even come closer.

His husband just lost his entire identity and he is terrified out of his mind.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Magnus breathes. He opens his arms. “Come here.”

The words are barely out of his mouth before Alec is clinging to him, shuddering out a harsh breath into Magnus’s neck. This close, the tang of sulfur is impossible to miss.

Mind reeling, all Magnus can do is hug him tighter, and try to breathe through the love he has for this man, and the fear of what that very love will do to them both.


	10. Unconscious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parabatai bantering and exasperated Magnus.
> 
> **Additional warnings:** None.

“Magnus is going to kill me,” Jace mutters under his breath. He pats Alec’s pockets for his parabatai’s phone or stele, but only finds more water, same as in his own. The wind tugs at his soaked clothes, biting his already chilled hands. Man, if he never has to battle demons on a ship again, it won’t be soon enough.

Alec doesn’t even twitch where he lies sprawled on the shore where Jace managed to pull them both up. Blood trails down his hairline, darkening the sand by his head, and his gurgled breathing, as well as the tightness in Jace’s own chest, confirms that there’s water in his lungs.

“Did you hear me, Alec? Your boyfriend is going to kill your brother.” Jace pulls him onto his side, grunting. “Or worse, turn me into a mouse for all those stray cats to play with, so how about you wake up and give your parabatai a hand, huh?”

No reaction.

Jace curses under his breath. His parabatai rune feels like it’s burning compared to how cold the rest of him is.

“Right. You just keep fighting, okay? Magnus will be here soon. He’ll fix you right up.” He can still hear the warlock’s horrified shout as Alec was thrown overboard. Magnus will come looking for them, the moment that the rest of their team have gained control of the demon outbreak.

Jace shrugs out of his jacket, wringing it as best he can before draping it over his brother’s upper body.

“Why’d you have to dive in front of me like that?” he mutters, needing to hear something other than Alec’s labored breathing. “I had it under control.”

It’s a blatant lie, and Alec would roll his eyes and call him on it if he were awake. But his eyes remain closed, his features slack—eerily similar to when Jace stumbled into Magnus’s loft and found him clutching that damn piece of adamas. The déjà vu makes bile crawl up his throat.

“Alec, come on. Don’t do this to me. Do you want me to beg, huh? Because I will, and that’s just gonna be uncomfortable for everyone—”

“Alexander!”

Jace slumps in relief when he sees Magnus running towards them, a portal closing behind him. The warlock skids to his knees by Alec’s head, eyes wide and forehead creased in alarm.

“He won’t wake up,” Jace says, and Magnus’s fingers immediately flare up blue and move in front of Alec’s bloodless lips.

“Are you hurt?”

It takes Jace a moment to realize that the question is directed at him.

He shakes his head. His hand presses into his parabatai rune.

“I’m good. Just fix him.” The words are unnecessary, Magnus’s curled fingers already urging a small stream of water out of his parabatai’s mouth. Jace immediately feels Alec’s breathing get easier.

“Come now, darling,” Magnus murmurs, voice tense. “Time to wake up. You’re worrying your brother.”

Jace is pretty sure that Magnus is more worried than he is—he can already tell that Alec is healing, the burning heat from his parabatai rune fading. But he still breathes a sigh of relief when Alec’s body tenses and he starts coughing.

“There you go,” Magnus mumbles, free hand stroking Alec’s hair. “Easy, my love. You’re all right.”

“Magnus?” Alec rasps out between coughs.

“The one and only. Your danger-prone parabatai is here, too.”

“Jace?”

“Right here, man.”

Alec’s eyes dart over him as Magnus gently helps him up into sitting. He hardly seems to notice as one of Magnus’s hands come up to heal the gash on his head.

“You good?”

“I’m good,” Jace nods. “You?”

Alec clears his throat, coughs again.

“Yeah.” He leans into his boyfriend and sends Jace a tired glare. “I’d be even better if you stopped putting yourself in unnecessary danger.”

Jace splutters.

“Ex_cuse_ me? You’re the one who threw yourself right between me and that thing.”

“Which I wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t antagonized it into attacking you.”

“Hey, that’s not—”

“Children, behave,” Magnus interrupts them. He shakes his head with a sigh. “You two. You’ll be the death of me, I’m sure of it.”

“Sorry,” Jace says, Alec echoing him. Magnus just sighs again. But he does dispel their clothes from water, so Jace figures he can’t be too upset.

“Right. As absolutely delightful as this is, are you ready to head home, darling, or do you need to get back to the Institute?”

While the question is clearly aimed at Alec, Magnus’s eyes are pinned on Jace.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jace says, before Alec can answer. “I’ll take care of the report.”

Alec frowns at him.

“You hate paperwork.”

Jace glances at Magnus’s raised eyebrow.

“I’m sure.” If paperwork is the only consequence from having put the boyfriend of the High Warlock of Brooklyn in danger, Jace will consider himself lucky.

“A most considerate offer that Alexander will gladly accept,” Magnus says. He shifts his gaze onto Alec. “Won’t you, darling?”

Alec closes his mouth with an audible click. Jace would laugh about how whipped he is, except he’s hardly any better.

“Marvelous.” Magnus flicks a portal into existence. “Your chariot awaits, Jace.”

Jace looks at Alec, hesitating. His parabatai waves him off.

“I’m good, Jace.”

Nodding, Jace clasps his arm, and rises. The last thing he hears before entering the portal is Magnus’s voice.

“Now, Alexander, we are going to have a little discussion about needlessly putting your life at risk.”

Jace doesn’t envy him at _all._


	11. Stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Uh, well. One character stitching up another? Kinda self-explanatory. Implications of some past self-harming behavior (because I am weak like that).

They stumble into Alec’s bedroom in a tangle of limbs, panted breaths, and Alec’s murmured reassurances in his ear. Magnus is shivering, leaning more of his weight on his boyfriend than either of them is comfortable with.

“Alec,” Magnus pants, for what must be the fifth time. “The others—”

“Can hold their own for a while,” Alec says, also for what must be the fifth time. “Right now, I’m focusing on you.”

Magnus wants to protest that the Shadowhunters need him more, that there are too many demons left crawling the Institute for him to worry about _Magnus_, but the words dissolve into a hiss when Alec lowers him to the bed. Sweat rolls down the side of his face, despite the fact that it feels like his heart is thumping ice through his veins.

“I’ll be right back, okay?”

Magnus watches as Alec disappears towards the tiny, utilitarian bathroom. He tries to make himself comfortable against the headboard—given the feverish pulse of his lower abdomen, it’s a futile undertaking, but he is so exhausted that he could very well fall asleep regardless.

He tugs at his shirt—completely ruined, courtesy of a demon that got a bit too frisky—trying to free it from his pants to expose the wound underneath, when Alec returns.

“Hey, stop that.” He puts a small bowl with water and an inconspicuous-looking box down on the nightstand. “I got it. Just relax.”

Magnus huffs.

“I’m not an invalid, Alexander.” But he leans back, wincing when it pulls at his ravaged skin.

Alec rubs at his knee with one hand and opens the box with the other. Peering inside, Magnus’s bleary vision makes out a small bottle, some thread, what looks like a hand towel, and gauze.

He frowns.

“Is it customary for Shadowhunters to have first aid kits in their bathrooms?”

“No.” Alec withdraws his stele from his jacket and draws the Heat rune onto the bowl of water—it immediately starts to boil. He then reaches inside the box and drops a needle into the bowl, leaving it there while he pulls out the hand towel and bottle, dousing the former with the contents of the latter. His movements are practiced and mechanical in a way that suggests years of going through the same motions and a sick feeling slithers through Magnus’s stomach.

“Alexander…”

Alec must hear the apprehension in his voice, because he flicks Magnus a smile. But it is too grim, too _sad_, to be reassuring.

“Some other time,” he promises.

Magnus wouldn’t have been able to object even if he’d wanted to, because then fire spreads from his hip to his navel and all the way around his back, cold enough that it feels like it splinters his bones.

A wounded noise escapes him before he can clamp down on it.

“Sorry, sorry,” Alec murmurs. He presses the alcohol-doused cloth into Magnus’s side and Magnus bites his lip to keep from crying out. His lungs strain to draw breath, but he doesn’t dare open his mouth for fear of what might come out. 

“There,” Alec says, an agonizing amount of time later. “All done.”

It takes a few moments for him to find his voice.

“So,” he gasps out, the word dragging up his dry throat like a match over tinder. “Am I dying?”

Alec glares up at him.

“That’s not funny.” He frowns down at the gash going from just above Magnus’s hipbone towards his navel. “How’s your magic?”

Magnus sighs.

“Recharging. But I’m afraid I won’t be of much use.”

Alec nods. Then, to Magnus’s horror, he reaches into the bowl of still-hissing water.

“Alec!”

“It’s fine,” Alec dismisses. He throws Magnus a raised eyebrow. “Do you know how many runes I have activated right now?” But his hand is still an angry pink when he withdraws it, the needle secure between his thumb and forefinger. Unaffected, he wipes it, and the thread he’d reached for with his other hand, off on a clean corner of the towel.

Magnus can all too easily picture this exact scenario but _without_ the absorbing effect of runes and his stomach roils.

_Some other time._

Breathing through his dread, he settles with, “I don’t suppose you have any alcohol in that little box of yours?”

Alec’ lips twitch apologetically.

“Sorry.” He snorts. “There’s disinfectant, but I’m not letting you drink that.”

“Pity.”

Just as Alec threads the needle, the whole building shakes, as if rocked by a massive explosion. They both still.

Magnus reaches for the needle.

“Go, I can—”

Alec swats his hands away.

“Your hands are shaking and you look like you’re about to pass out,” he says, which—hurts, but isn’t entirely inaccurate.

He meets Magnus’s eyes, his own softening.

“Your glamor is down.”

Magnus sighs in defeat and leans back against the headboard. He waves a hand for Alec to proceed.

He tries to be quiet, because while Alec’s hands are steady and his eyes are clear, Magnus knows that this is hard for his boyfriend. He focuses on Alec’s breathing, tries to copy it to take his mind off the flames digging deeper into his stomach and hip with every puncture of his skin. Still, by the time Alec ties off the last stitch and proceeds to wipe away excess blood with the disinfected towel, Magnus feels woozy with pain, blood loss, and magic depletion.

Alec’s fingers brush his damp hair from his equally damp forehead, while he bites gauze free from its plastic packaging. 

“You okay?”

Magnus’s stomach muscles tense as Alec tapes the gauze over his sutured skin.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he breathes through the sensation of lava filling his stomach. “But I’ll live.”

Alec nods, his lips pursed in a frown. He opens his mouth just as another aftershock rumbles through the Institute. Cursing, he rises from the bed and stuffs the first aid materials back into the box, putting it on the floor. Reaching across from Magnus, he pulls the comforter free and drapes it over him, readjusting the pillows at his back as he goes.

“I’ll lock the door behind me,” he says, pressing a quick kiss to Magnus’s temple.

Magnus grabs his wrist before he can move away.

“You better come back.”

Alec must read the fear he feels on his face, because he leans down and brings their foreheads together. He cups Magnus’s neck, smiling softly.

“Why wouldn’t I? Look what I have waiting for me.”

Magnus huffs, his chest tight.

“You are such a dork.” Alec chuckles against Magnus’s mouth. “And that is really not as reassuring as I thought it to be at the time.”

Alec just smirks at him. He gives Magnus another peck before straightening.

“Take it easy, okay? I’ll be back.”

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Magnus pleads, despite his better judgment. He has yet to meet a Nephilim that shows even a basic understanding of the word and he gave up hope on Alexander being the first one a long time ago.

“Promise.” Alec is already at the door. “Love you.”

“I love you, too.”

There is nothing Magnus can do other than watch him go—to throw himself back into the thick of battle while Magnus stays here, injured and useless. His brain screams at him to get up, to get back out there, to help his friends and family. But his magic is all but nonexistent. He has no weapons. And, of course, there’s the highly inconvenient fact that his legs can’t carry his weight at the moment.

Sighing, Magnus leans back against the headboard and closes his eyes.

Fifteen minutes. If he can stand by then, he’ll get back out there and join the others.

Alexander can yell at him about it later.


	12. Don't Move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Can I warn for randomness? 'Cause I'm definitely doing that. Also past character death.

It’s a sliver of silver moonlight tearing through the gold of the bedroom. Soft sunshine and silk sheets pave way for lush greenery, grazing herbivores, and the background noise of children laughing.

Magnus’s eyes are tracking the aerial dance of a fuchsia-colored bird when there’s a quiet _oomph_ from his left. He turns his head—a brief whirl of green, blue, brown, and beige—

And there he is.

“I think you made a new friend,” Magnus hears himself say with a chuckle.

Alexander just stares at the large, speckled head that is nuzzling into his chest, all cautious curiosity and boyish wonder, even with the laugh lines creasing the corners of his eyes and with gray dusting his raven hair. He raises a tentative hand. The giraffe pushes into his palm—and licks it. Alec startles, jerking away—but not before the giraffe has dragged its twenty inches longue tongue across his face.

Magnus’s laughter is a burst of sound in the silent bedroom.

Alec scowls without heat, disgruntled amusement twitching his face. It turns into incredulity when his gaze drops to Magnus’s hands.

“Seriously?”

Magnus can hear the smile in his own voice as he answers.

“Oh, this one is definitely going into the album. I want to remember this.” _You, like this. Exactly like this. For eternity._ He raises the camera. “Now, don’t move.”

Alec raises an eyebrow, indulgence and mock-exasperation in the quirk of his mouth. He’s leaning against the fence to the giraffe enclosure, hands in his pant pockets and hair tousled—from Magnus’s fingers as much as from the playful wind. His eyes are bright, the cloudy sky and surrounding vegetation bringing out the green in the hazel. He looks calm, soft, _happy,_ in the way he learned to be when he got older.

“You want to remember me with giraffe drool on my shirt and face?” his husband clarifies.

“And in your hair,” Magnus confirms, laughing as Alec groans.

The image narrows as Magnus brings up the camera and snaps a picture—or ten. Alec is watching him with soft amusement when he eventually lowers it.

He closes the distance between them, leaning in for a kiss, and Alec shakes his head. His eyes are sparkling—with warmth, laughter, _life._

“Magnus, I have—”

“I don’t care,” Magnus says, and kisses him, giraffe drool and all.

The memory blurs and fades, and, with it, Alec’s fond chuckle. The plodding of hooves distorts and transforms into the background bustle of New York City. Colorful foliage reverts back to sun-kissed sheets, but the warmth doesn’t touch him. Cold wets his cheeks, trailing down his throat and soaking into his skin, adding another layer to his frozen heart.

Magnus looks down at the photograph in his hands, the edges worn and crinkled from age and love.

“Yes, Alexander,” he whispers to his husband’s smiling face. “Exactly like that.”


	13. Adrenaline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is honestly so soft, wtf. I think Malec are getting tired of me hurting them all the time, lol.
> 
> **Additional warnings:** Accidental cutting. Some unsavory descriptions of stress/anxiety (depending on your interpretation).

Alec’s brain is swimming in vibrations. They shoot down his spine, crowd his lungs, roll down his arms. He jerks his shoulders, clenches his hands, breathes in deep, but they latch on like leeches.

He digs fingers into stinging eyes. He needs more coffee. His stomach sloshes with the remnants of the eight cups he’s already had today, but he burned through his Stamina rune hours ago and there’s still so much to do. Izzy may have succeeded in bullying him from the Institute, but his briefcase is bursting with mission reports, security updates, transfer requests, maintenance reports, and financial statements that all need his signature. And that’s not even mentioning the Clave inquiries and correspondences that he’s been putting off.

But there are maggots wriggling through his brain, crawling down his neck, biting into his flesh and making his leg bounce where he’s seated on the toilet seat in the bathroom, wiping down his Seraph blade. The demon jumping out at him on his way home had been a relief in many ways—Angels knew he had his fair share of frustrations to work through—but this ichor refuses to come out, and the fact that his hands are goddamn _shaking_ definitely isn’t helping.

Growling in frustration, Alec rubs harder at the blade, swipes almost frantic. His heart is beating a bruise into his ribcage. The added vibrations catapult the coffee in his stomach up his throat, almost making him gag. He came home over fifteen minutes ago and his lungs are still straining to draw breath, starving for air, and he doesn’t have _time_ for—

“_Fuck_,” he hisses, as his grip on the blade slips and it pierces his arm. Blood wells up from the gash, a shock of color against his alabaster skin. It trails down both sides of the cut, a thin line trickling down to his wrist. Like a perverse cross.

There is a murmur of crescendoing noise, skittering across his scalp and rumbling through his skin. He presses his thumb to the wound, where most of the blood pools, and fire flares through his arm and up to his brain, shocking his thoughts into stillness. Everything sharpens. The haze withdraws; his lungs solidify, filling with the first breath of fresh air he’s taken in days. He is no longer drowning. He feels solid, _real._

Alec closes his suddenly burning eyes, sighing in shaky relief, even as his gut roils with shame.

He chose this. He trained and prepared and _fought_ to be where he is today. His parents may have groomed him to become Head, but he still _wants_ this; so if, some days, he feels like he could scream himself hoarse over the seemingly regenerative pile of paperwork on his desk—if he lies awake some nights, thoughts ricocheting like pinballs in his head even though he’s so tired he could weep (and sometimes does)—if, some mornings, he just wants to roll over in bed and forget that he’s Alec Lightwood, Head of the New York Institute, then he needs to toughen up and soldier on. He put himself in this position, and he will bear the consequences of it, both good and bad. This is what he wanted.

But, fuck, he’s just so _tired._

“Alexander?”

The blade in his hand falls to the floor with a clang. It only narrowly misses his socked feet.

“Angels, Magnus,” he curses.

“Sorry.” Magnus pushes the door to the bathroom open. “I didn’t expect you to be ho—”

His eyes widen as they fall on Alec’s bloodied arm.

“It’s nothing,” Alec tries, but his boyfriend is already stepping further into the room, eyes zeroed in on the wound and the blood dripping down onto the pristine bathroom floor. It’s not bad—it’s deeper than Alec thought it was, now that he looks more closely, but definitely not deep enough to warrant the look of dread that flashes in Magnus’s eyes before it melts into a mask of forced calm that Alec recognizes simply because he sees it in the mirror all the time.

“Alexander,” Magnus says, all cautious compassion. “Did you…?”

“What?”

It isn’t until he follows Magnus’s gaze, falling on his blood-tinted blade, that the implication turns into understanding. Alec blanches.

“_No._”

Magnus looks at him then—wary, sad, and so full of sympathy.

“Darling, it’s all right. I’m not angry with you—”

“It’s not what you think.” _By the Angel._ Ignoring his pride, he raises his trembling hands. “I was cleaning my blade. It was an accident.”

Magnus closes his eyes on an almost soundless _oh_. Alec can read the relief in the drooping of his shoulders. He would be offended, but it's not like he hasn't given Magnus reason to worry in the past.

Add that to his ever-growing list of failures.

“I apologize for assuming,” Magnus says. He gestures at Alec’s arm. “May I?”

Alec leans back with a sigh. He gives a tired nod. He can feel the sting of venom, burrowing into his exposed nerves like a burdock. It’s something else to latch onto, something that binds him to what is real, that keeps him from drowning again, but it’s not like he can leave it unattended now that Magnus knows.

Magnus’s lips twitch sadly, as if he can hear what Alec is thinking, but he doesn’t say anything. Crouching down in front of the toilet, he merely cups Alec’s arm in his palms, blue tinting his fingertips. It’s only because he’s so still that Alec realizes how badly he himself is trembling.

“How about we go lay down for a bit, hm?” Magnus suggests when he’s done. He doesn’t let go of Alec’s arm, his thumbs brushing over the healed skin as if afraid to bruise. “After the day I’ve had, I could certainly use some rest.”

It’s everything that Alec wants, but he shakes his head. This is why he didn’t want to come home, why he has avoided seeing Magnus for days, despite how every hour of separation breaks him a little more. Magnus would make him stop, would make him rest, and he can’t. He’s not _done_ yet.

“I still have work to do. I just need—”

Magnus’s hands slide down to grab Alec’s shaking ones.

“More coffee is the absolute last thing you need,” he says with a pointedly raised eyebrow. “Just for half an hour,” he tries, when Alec starts to protest. “Then you can return to work.”

Alec’s eyes narrow in suspicion.

“You won’t stop me?”

Magnus doesn’t look happy about it, but he inclines his head.

“You have my word.”

He shouldn’t. He isn’t done. He doesn’t deserve a break yet. But the bed looks so inviting where it peeks over Magnus’s shoulders, and Magnus is looking at him with such soft concern, his thumbs circling the back of Alec’s hands—his hands that are still shaking.

His shoulders slump in defeat.

“Thirty minutes,” he sighs. The words are barely out of his mouth before Magnus is dragging him towards the bed.

Alec is in his sleepwear, cuddled in Magnus’s arms, less than ten seconds later.

He nuzzles into Magnus’s chest, breathing in the scent of sandalwood, burnt sugar, and honey. It wraps around him as effectively and soothingly as Magnus’s arms.

“I really do need to work,” he says, even as his muscles start to unclench.

Magnus kisses his head. 

“I know.”

“Promise you’ll wake me.”

Magnus’s sigh drifts across his temple.

“I promise. As long as you promise to let me get some food in you and that you’ll stay away from the coffee.”

“Promise,” Alec mumbles. The maggots are still moving, but Magnus’s fingers in his hair is almost enough to take his mind off them, the steady heartbeat under his ear calming the quiver in his own lungs.

He is still a mess, still tearing at the seams. But, for the next thirty minutes, he does his best to forget, and let Magnus knit him back together.


	14. Tear-stained

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** (Im)mortality angst (sort of).

It lies in the air, thick as incense, when Alec steps over the threshold.

He inches the door closed behind him.

“Magnus?”

The loft seems to be asleep, even though the sun has yet to fully descend, and Alec makes his way towards the bedroom with a heavy heart.

Magnus lies curled on his side, hugging a pillow to his chest. He’s wearing one of Alec’s hoodies, product-free hair falling over his face. He always looks soft and young when he’s sleeping—but now, he looks small and defeated, and Alec heaves a quiet sigh.

He’d asked if Magnus needed him to come home early, then if Magnus _wanted_ him to, and received a kind but firm dismissal on both.

Of course, Alec still knew his husband, had learned what Magnus needed even when he himself didn’t know what that was, and finished today’s work in record time. 

He undresses as quickly and quietly as he can, and slides into bed on the opposite side of his husband. There are no tear tracks on his face, no dampness on his pillow—but the skin around his eyes is marred with grief, and it makes the air in Alec’s lungs turn into wet sand.

_An old friend of mine passed today._

They’ve been married for two years, and already it’s instinctual—to reach for Magnus in the morning, to call out for him when coming home at the end of a long day, to call him _during_ the day because he’s bored or frustrated or just needs to hear his husband’s voice.

Alec wonders how many months, years, or maybe even decades it will take for Magnus not to expect him to be there in those moments. To not reach for him in the morning.

He traces a finger from Magnus’s eyebrow down his cheek, to his jaw, ignoring the sting in his eyes, trailing down his own cheeks.

“I love you,” he whispers.

The words have never felt so inadequate.


	15. Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Deals with partial paralysis (kind of). Alec isn't very nice in this one, but it's only because he's scared and in pain, poor boy.

Alec lies on his stomach on the bed. Sunlight filters in through the parted curtains, brushing his upper back and arms and making the gold sheets shimmer. His hair is a shock of dark, his runes standing out like swirls of ink on an empty sheet of paper.

The sight should fill Magnus with joy, love, and maybe a frisky idea or five. But he is all too aware of the tension in Alec’s shoulders, the clench of his stubbled jaw, and the deep furrow on his brow.

It’s terrifying, how familiar he’s become with seeing his husband in pain.

“Magnus,” Alec says. It’s a greeting, a warning, and a plea, all in one.

Magnus forces a smile onto his face that he knows Alec would see right through, if he were to open his eyes. If he were to look at Magnus at all, which he hasn’t. Not since Magnus found him two weeks ago, lying in a pool of his own blood, staring at him with eyes that were more white than hazel.

_I can’t—Magnus—I can’t feel my legs._

The smile wobbles. He keeps it in place through sheer force of will.

“Good morning, my love.”

Alec grunts. He heaves himself up on his elbows. The covers slide down, pooling at his waist. Before, Magnus would have appreciated the view; but now, his eyes immediately fall on the puckered silver scar, splayed diagonally across Alec’s back.

He swallows through the snare tightening around his throat.

“Let me see to your back first.”

Alec stiffens. Magnus braces himself for an argument, but his husband lowers himself back down without a word.

Magnus slides up on the other side of the bed, the small cauldron cradled in his hands, and situates himself by Alec’s hip. He dips his fingers into the poultice, dragging up a handful of the grainy, green salve.

His fingers barely brush against the scar, but Alec still tenses.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

_Liar._

The poultice will ease the pain, but it is useless against the numbness. Magnus knows that Alec would rather have the pain to focus on than the dull, disconnected feeling of his lower body, but Magnus refuses to let him suffer any more than he has to.

All too soon, the cauldron is empty.

His fingers linger on the low of Alec’s back as he watches the salve sink into his husband’s skin. He is sure Alec notices, but he doesn’t call him on it. It could’ve been a—not a pleasant moment, perhaps, but a comforting one, one of shared commiseration. But the silence between them is loaded with tension, like the air before a thunderstorm, and Magnus has no idea how to diffuse it.

“Do you need me to—”

“No,” Alec says, curt. “I got it.”

The dismissal is expected, but it still stings.

Magnus nods.

“All right.”

He retracts his hand and rises from the bed, ignoring how every step he takes seems to widen the chasm between them.

“Breakfast will be waiting for when you’re ready,” he says softly, hovering in the doorway. “Holler if you need anything.”

Alec doesn’t respond, but Magnus hadn’t expected him to—just like he knows that his husband won’t call for him. He won’t move, either—not until Magnus leaves. Alec doesn’t want him to be here when he drags himself up into sitting on shaking arms, or when he guides his legs onto the floor with his hands. He doesn’t want Magnus to see the way he’ll struggle to pull himself into standing, using the wall for support, or his slow shuffle towards the bathroom.

Magnus knows what it’s like to not want to be dependent on someone else, and Alec is a proud man. But they’re married. They’re supposed to be able to lean on each other.

“Stop looking at me like I’m going to break,” Alec snaps.

Magnus thinks, _You’re one of the strongest people I know_ and _stop pushing me away_ and _just let me help you, you stubborn man._

He says, “Of course. My apologies,” and retreats to the kitchen.

While he waits for his tea to finish steeping, his mind takes him back to that night: to the dampness soaking his pants, the white of bone in a stream of crimson, the fear suffusing the air, so thick it almost choked him.

He leans against the counter and closes his eyes, swallowing against the nausea. When he finally got there, a portion of Alec’s spine had been almost completely cleaved in two. The fact that he can walk at all is nothing short of a miracle. But the gratitude Magnus feels is not something his husband shares. Alec is frustrated that the healing is taking so long, and scared out of his mind by what that might mean—that this, the shuffling gait and the constant murmur of pain and the muted awareness of his lower body is as good as it’s going to get.

_I can’t stand for more than twenty minutes before my back cramps up and my legs start to go numb,_ Alec told him, in a rare moment of truthfulness. _I can’t hunt, can’t train—I can hardly walk up a flight of stairs. What kind of Shadowhunter does that make me?_

There is nothing Magnus can say or do to make it better, no reassurances he can give. All they can do is wait, and hope for the best.

Magnus is generally not a patient man—but he can be, for the things that matter, and Alec matters. If this is what his husband needs right now, to take his frustration, his fear, and his pain, out on someone, Magnus would rather it be at him than at Alec himself.

So, he’ll endure the cold behavior, the snappy comments, and the tense silences, for as long as it takes.

Even if every rejection cuts like a lash to his heart.


	16. Pinned Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** If 2x12 triggered you, there's a fair chance that this one will as well.
> 
> Maybe it's the late hour, but I honestly feel a little bad about this one.

They barged into their home. The audacity of that alone was enough to shock them both into temporary stillness. Then one of the Shadowhunters said that Magnus was under arrest for several violations against the Accords, and Magnus had half expected his husband to deck her. When they shoved a piece of paper in their faces, it quickly became clear that, save for physically fighting their way out of the situation, there was little that they could legally do.

Magnus had placed his palm on his husband’s chest, as much for his own sake as for Alec’s, and said that _of course_ he’d cooperate. The moment they’d taken out the handcuffs, though, Alec exploded.

“Put those anywhere near him and I will kill all of you, the laws be damned.”

The Shadowhunters wisely hadn’t tested him on it.

Magnus got escorted from their home and to the small cell where he’s now been for the past few days. He tries to be patient, knows that Alec and the rest of their family are doing everything they can on their side of things, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult not to imagine another room, similar to this one, from years ago—especially when whatever charms are in place are rendering his magic useless.

The door to his cell opens. A Shadowhunter steps through: a young woman with chestnut hair and a demanding presence that makes him think of Lydia Branwell.

“Finally realized your mistake, have you?” Magnus rises from his perch on the cot—an unforeseen luxury, though what little sleep he has managed has been far from restful. “It took longer than I would have preferred, but I respect thoroughness as much as the next man.”

“Sit down, Mr. Bane.”

“Lightwood-Bane,” he corrects automatically.

“You’re not getting released,” the woman says. She takes out a stele from her pocket. “In fact, if you won’t admit to your crimes willingly, I’ve been authorized to use other means to… motivate you.”

The air goes stale in Magnus’s lungs.

“It would help if I knew what I’m being charged with,” he eventually manages. He barely hears the words over the rush in his ears.

“I’m not allowed to tell you,” the woman says. “The Clave doesn’t want to give you the opportunity to leave anything out of your confession.”

“Ah. Well, unfortunately for the Clave, I have nothing _to_ confess.”

“I’m only following orders,” the woman says, and that’s when Magnus sees it. She’s just as uncomfortable about this as he is. “Just admit whatever it was that you did. There is no reason to make this more difficult than it has to be.”

Magnus shakes his head.

“Look, whatever charges you think that you have against me—”

“The evidence points to you and only you,” the woman interrupts. “There are no discrepancies.”

“Have it crossed your mind that someone might be trying to pin these crimes on me?” He doesn’t notice that he’s been slowly backing away from the Shadowhunter until his knees hit the edge of the bed. His hands are curled into shaking fists by his sides. “Where is my husband? I demand to speak with him.”

The woman shakes her head.

“He’s not allowed to see you.” She glances towards the still-open door behind her. “You need to admit to your crimes.”

“I already told you,” Magnus says through gritted teeth. “I don’t have anything to confess.”

The woman closes her eyes. She tilts her head, nodding. Two other Shadowhunters step into the room, and the built of them is enough to explain why they’re here.

Magnus’s heart freezes.

“No.” He stumbles back. The wall presses against him, cold and unmovable. The two Shadowhunters advance on him. “No, please. Don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bane,” the woman says. “I don’t have a choice.”

He throws himself to the side, towards the door, but the two Shadowhunters grab his arms, pinning him to the wall. Magnus bucks against the hold, but their fingers are cords of steel, unyielding. He thrashes, tries to kick them off, kick himself loose. Their knees dig into his thighs, restraining him.

“Don’t do this,” Magnus begs, terror seizing his vocal cords. He can’t do this, not again, not— “Please. Whatever you think I did, you’re wrong.”

The woman doesn’t look at him as she pulls up his shirtsleeve, exposing his wrist.

“No, no, no.” Magnus tries to wiggle away, but she yanks his arm straight. “Wait. Please. Listen to me. You’re making a—”

The world erupts in agony.

Magnus screams.

…

A hand grips his arm.

Magnus flinches away as much as his aching body is able to, broken pleas of _please_ and _stop_ and _no more, please_ bubbling over his cracked lips like iron-flavored froth. It can’t be time yet. He doesn’t know how long it’s been—since last time, since the first—but it can’t be—not yet—they were _just_ here.

There’s a pained noise that vaguely resembles his own name. The mattress under him shifts.

He whimpers. Tries to shuffle further away.

_Please._

A hand cups his cheek. The gentleness of the gesture is so unexpected that he forgets to recoil. It has to be a trick, some new kind of torture, because it can’t be real. He can’t trust it to be real. It’s not real.

But he would recognize those callouses anywhere. And when there’s once again that sound, breaking over his name like it’s the last known word of a dying language, Magnus’s eyes fly open.

Alec looks beaten down and broken, all unwashed hair and hollowed cheeks and haunted, red-rimmed eyes—like he crawled through the fires of Edom and just barely made it out on the other side.

He is so perfectly imperfect that it can only be real.

Magnus sobs out his name and then he’s in his husband’s arms, breathing in his sweat and the traces of his cologne and wetting the fabric of his shirt with his tears.

“Shh, I’ve got you,” Alec murmurs into his hair, and he’s crying, too. “It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. Fuck, Magnus, I’m so sorry.”

His mind feels like it’s been flayed, bleeding and raw, memories seeping out of him like blood from an open wound, past and present and future swirling together until he can’t tell dream from reality.

But these are his husband’s arms around him; it’s his husband’s voice in his ear, his husband’s pulse, beating against his temple. Real or imaginary, he doesn’t care, as long as he can stay.

As long as Alexander stays.


	17. Stay With Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** None.

Alec is sitting on the couch, watching him. Magnus doesn’t have to look to feel his husband’s eyes tracking his every move; it’s what they’ve been doing since Alec came home to find him pacing in front of the balcony doors.

“You’re sure it wasn’t just a nightmare?” Alec asks, and Magnus closes his eyes.

He hasn’t had many prophetic dreams during the course of his long life, but he remembers every one of them. He dreamed his mother’s suicide before it happened—that’s why he went to her that night, driven by the same ice-cold panic that grips him now, praying that he was wrong. Knowing that he wasn’t.

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.” He can all too easily picture Alec nodding, thoughts of planning and strategy working grooves into his brow. “Okay. What did you see _exactly_?”

It’s not his husband asking, but the Inquisitor—asking for the sake of the city and its thousands of inhabitants. Thinking about their people when Magnus himself cannot.

Magnus stares out the window.

_Fire rages all around him. The pristine white walls of Alicante are smudged with soot; flakes rain down from the scorched sky, stinging his eyes. Flames burst through rooftops and windowless buildings caving in on themselves, devouring glass and stone. The towers lie crumbled over blood-stained pavement. The Accords Hall is cleaved in two._

_Bodies cover every street. His feet slip over Warlocks, Werewolves, Vampires, Seelies, Shadowhunters: colleagues, neighbors, friends. Heat slicks his skin. The stench of burning flesh invades his nostrils and cloys in his lungs as he stumbles towards the smoldering remnants of the Gard, gaze darting over the pelt of charred skin, hoping, praying—_

_A hand peeks out of a stack of limbs, one finger adorned with a familiar, silver ring._

“Magnus.”

Magnus takes a shaky breath. It scalds down his throat.

“The city burns,” he says. The words crackle in his ears like dry timber. “The Accords Hall lies in ruins. The Gard, too. The towers fall. There are bodies on the streets—hundreds, of every kind. All of them dead.” He swallows. “And you…”

His heart flinches. Denial grips him like a boa constrictor, and he wants it to swallow him whole—wants to forget the destruction that ripped him from deep slumber, to return to bed and curl up with his husband in his arms like this was any other night.

He doesn’t realize that magic is dripping from his fingers until Alec’s own still their agitated twitching. Magnus looks down at their hands, at the twin bands of silver, gleaming in the shine from the city below.

His lungs quiver.

“You never take it off,” he whispers. “Not to sleep, not to shower, not when you go into battle.” He looks up at his husband. “Please, Alexander. I need you to trust me.”

Alec’s free hand cups Magnus’s neck.

“Of course I trust you, Magnus,” he murmurs, in that quiet, gentle tone of voice that says what his words do not.

_I trust you. But it won’t change anything._

Magnus is shaking his head even before Alec continues. “But you said it yourself: you don’t know when this will happen. It could be years from now. I can’t just take an indefinite leave of absence. If something happens—”

“There is no ‘if’ about it,” Magnus insists. “I _saw_ it happen, Alec.”

Alec rubs at his neck.

“I could request to send out more scouts…”

“It won’t make a difference.” Magnus’s fingers ache for how hard they’re gripping Alec’s. “Alexander, please.” _Ignore your duties, ignore your training, let other people take point and take the fall, be selfish_. They are unreasonable demands to make of anyone in a leading position, let alone Alexander.

But Magnus is far beyond caring about _reason_. They’ve only been married for three years. It’s not enough—is nowhere _near_ enough.

He’s not ready. He’s starting to realize that he never will be.

“Hey.” Magnus lets Alec pull him into his arms. “I’m here,” his husband murmurs, thumb rubbing over the knobs of Magnus’s neck. “I’m here. Let’s just breathe for a minute, okay?”

_Please_, Magnus thinks, tightening his grip on Alec’s shirt, concentrating on the scent of Alec’s cologne over the stench of burning bodies. _Please, stay. Stay with me._

Alec kisses his temple, shushing him.

Two months later, when Magnus is on a conference in Slovenia, Alicante falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the Shadowhunters Wiki, the Inquisitor and his/her family live at the Gard. I wouldn't put it past Malec to change that tradition as well, but that's why Magnus is running there in this story.


	18. Muffled Scream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** None. Just sit back and enjoy the family feels.

Magnus’s hands hang limply between his knees. They’re a smudged red-and-brown, his fingers tacky—sticking to each other if he rubs the pads together, so he doesn’t. Remnants of ashes and ichor coat his face like an itching, bad-quality foundation.

He shifts on the seat; the edges dig into his thighs. Every inch of movement ignites a domino effect of aches through his body, but it’s nothing compared to how his heart flares up with a new bruise for every muted scream that echoes from the other side of the door.

His fingers curl, but they’re trembling too much to clench into fists. His eyes sting, from fatigue, leftover dread, and the scene that keeps replaying in his mind, mocking him with what could have happened. What almost did happen.

Sharp stilettos and thundering boots reverberate through the corridors. Magnus drags his head up, neck twinging, as Jace and Izzy round the corner.

He inclines his head towards the closed infirmary door.

“Brother Enoch is with him,” he says, before either of them can ask. His eyes roam over Jace—the tension in his shoulders, the restless fire in his eyes, the hand pressed to his side.

He swallows.

“How does he feel?”

“What do you think?” Jace snaps and Magnus flinches, from the volume as much as the venom in his voice. “Where the fuck _were_ you?”

“_Jace_,” Izzy hisses, and Jace rounds on her.

“No, this is exactly what I said was gonna happen! When he’s not stuck doing paperwork, when something happens that draws him out into the field, who’s gonna have his back?”

“He isn’t the only Shadowhunter in Alicante,” Izzy says. “And besides, he has Magnus.”

Jace scoffs.

“Yeah. Fat lot of good that did him.”

Magnus averts his gaze.

There’s a cut-off _oomph_ and a stumbled step. Glancing up, Magnus sees Jace rub at his chest, glaring at his sister.

“What the hell, Izzy!”

Izzy stares him down, hands on her hips.

“I know you’re still hurting from what happened with Clary,” she says, and her voice—low, calm, unflinching—sounds so much like Alec’s that it makes Magnus’s lungs tighten. “We all are. But that doesn’t mean that you can blame our brother-in-law for something that was out of his control. Whatever happened, do you really think Magnus _didn’t_ do everything he could to keep Alec safe?”

Magnus closes his eyes. It doesn’t matter what he’d tried to do. Jace is right: he failed. Alec is injured because of him, bad enough that they had to call on the Silent Brothers. If Jace wants to blame him, punish him, there is little Magnus could do in his current state—little he _would_ do, regardless.

“He got hurt, yes,” Izzy says. “But he’s _alive_. And that’s thanks to Magnus.”

There’s a click of heels against stone, the strain of leather, and then a hand squeezes his knee. Magnus drags his eyes open to see Izzy crouched before him, dark eyes shimmering in concern and sympathy.

“Are you okay?”

Magnus attempts a smile—it slips when another muffled groan filters through the infirmary walls.

“Don’t you worry about me, guapa. Some scrapes and bruises, that’s all.”

Izzy raises an eyebrow at him.

“By the state of you, I’d say that’s pretty far from the truth,” she says, but she’s smiling at him, warm and unrestrained, without a trace of resentment. She takes one of his hands in both of hers, hardly seeming to notice the dirt and blood. “You’re family, Magnus. Of course I’ll worry about you.”

Magnus swallows against the gratitude and affection that threaten to clog up his throat, despite how long it’s been.

“I’m sorry.”

Magnus looks to Jace, standing in front of the infirmary door, body tense as if he’s ready to bolt into the room the moment it opens. But his eyes are on Magnus.

“I didn’t mean…”

Magnus’s free hand twitches in his lap, an aborted gesture.

“It’s all right. I understand.”

“I just…” Jace averts his gaze to the door. Maybe it’s the lighting, harsh and unforgiving, or the fact that they don’t see each other every day, now that Magnus and Alec live in Alicante, but he looks pale—pale and tired, that gleam in his eyes that always used to get him into trouble gone.

_We need to visit New York more often_, Magnus thinks. They’ve been so wrapped up in work lately, with Alec’s promotion and Magnus’s new role as the High Warlock of Alicante. It would do them all good to be with family again.

Jace’s throat bobs.

“I can’t lose him, too,” he says, voice hoarse.

“You won’t,” Izzy says, and Magnus has to marvel at her strength, at her pure conviction, so alike his husband’s. “None of us are. He’ll be fine.”

Magnus tenses as another cry bleeds through the door, slicing across his heart. Jace jerks forward a step, soul reaching out to its other half.

“He’ll be fine,” Izzy says again, and Magnus closes his eyes and wills her words to be true. They can’t handle any more losses.

They wait, the only sound filling the silence Alexander’s muffled screams.


	19. Asphyxiation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jace wanted to redeem himself after last chapter. Who was I to refuse?
> 
> **Additional warnings:** I mean... descriptions of a character suffocating?

The moment he steps over the threshold, several things happen at once.

A sudden weight falling into his back—_Magnus_—makes Jace stumble forward just as the screech of a rusty drawer being pulled open scrapes through his ears, muffling Alec’s shout.

Silence.

Jace swivels around. The entrance that they came through is gone, replaced by the same beige wall that encompasses the rest of the tiny room. There’s dull pounding from the other side.

“_Jace?_” Alec calls, voice faint. “_Magnus? Are you guys okay?_”

“Yeah,” Jace hollers. He starts to turn. “Yeah, we’re—”

Magnus drops.

Jace pivots, blade in hand and ready to fight—but there’s nothing there. Only Magnus on all fours, gasping.

Jace drops his blade and skids to his knees by his brother-in-law.

“_Jace? What’s happening?_”

Magnus’s hand is pulling at his collar, clawing at his throat. His mouth is open, throat working, but no air passes. He sounds like he’s choking.

Dread chills Jace’s spine.

Another series of banging.

“_Magnus?_”

Jace forces himself to focus—despite the alarm ripping through the bond, mirrored in Magnus’s wide, unglamored eyes.

“Sit tight, all right.” He rushes back to the door. “Alec, we need to get this door open.”

“_Runes don’t work,_” Alec says. “_There’s no handle on my side._”

“Not here, either.” Jace runs his hands over the faint outlines of the edges, but the door isn’t so much a door as a wall slide. There aren’t even cracks where he could insert his blade or dagger to force it open.

He turns around, scanning the room. The walls are bare, a barren desk and a small bookcase the only furniture. No windows. Nothing to indicate a way out.

His eyes fall on Magnus. His skin has taken on a grayish hue, eyes glazed over.

Jace dashes to the desk, ripping open the drawers and running his fingers into every nook and crevice.

“There must be some kind of kill-switch on your side,” he calls over his shoulder, pulling the desk from the wall and checking the back for hidden compartments, a lever, anything, but there’s nothing.

He turns his attention to the bookcase, tearing book after book from its place, feeling their spines, shaking them, before dropping them to the floor.

There’s a thud from behind him. His head snaps around.

Magnus is lying on the floor, body twitching on aborted breaths.

Cursing, he hurries through the last couple of books and—finding nothing—rushes back to his brother-in-law.

Magnus’s eyes are slits of gold in a face leeched of color. His lips are blue.

“Alec, you need to get a move on!” Jace hollers. He taps Magnus’s cheek. “Hey, Magnus, no nodding off, all right? You gotta hold on. Wait for Alec, okay?”

Magnus’s eyes are glassy, the kind that Jace has only ever seen on corpses, and he grabs Magnus’s neck, shaking him. The pulse point under his thumb stutters.

“No, no, no, hey. No dying on me, you hear?” He crouches down, inches from Magnus’s face. “Come on, man, look at me, don’t—”

Jace jerks back when Magnus’s whole body lurches, and he starts heaving in deep, desperate breaths.

“Thank the Angel,” he sighs, gripping Magnus’s shoulder as he gags and gasps into the floorboards. “Easy, you’re okay. Just breathe, man.”

Magnus tilts his head enough to send him a watery glare. Jace pats his back with a relieved grin.

Hurried footfalls echo behind them, followed by a frantic, “Magnus?”

Jace scoots back as his parabatai throws himself on the floor beside them and reaches for his husband. Magnus still looks dazed, sweat dampening his brow, but the blue tinge to his lips is gone. Jace and Alec help him up into a hunched-over, semi-seated position. Alec braces his neck, tugging their foreheads together. Magnus relaxes into him, closing his eyes.

“You okay?” Alec murmurs.

Magnus nods, a tired dip of his head. He clears his throat, coughing.

“I do suggest a change of locale, though,” he rasps. Jace winces. Each word crackles, like the scrunching of shriveled paper.

Alec searches his eyes—still unglamored, but thankfully no longer as glassy. It’s the type of all-knowing, soul-searching look that he and Jace share all the time. It used to make him jealous, how quickly Alec and Magnus developed this kind of silent communication when it took him and Alec years, but that was a long time ago. Now, he mostly just feels grateful.

“Let us help,” is all Alec says, and Magnus hums, coughing out another breath.

Jace lets go of Magnus the moment they’re all upright, entrusting the warlock to his husband. Whatever color he had managed to get back drains from his face at the change of altitude, but he seems steady enough.

They leave the room—and enter a warzone.

Jace whistles. It’s not like he hasn’t seen the results of Alec in a protective rage before, but damn.

Magnus must be thinking the same thing, because he huffs a quiet laugh. Glancing behind him, his brother-in-law is gazing at his parabatai with equal parts amusement and affection. Alec just tugs him closer and kisses his temple.

Scanning the demolished room, Jace’s eyes fall on the fletching of one of Alec’s arrows. At first, he thinks it’s just buried into the wall, until he notices the spatter, splashed out around it as if Alec had nailed an invisible bucket of paint to the tapestry.

“Magical drainage.”

Jace looks back at Magnus.

“You got that from one glance at a stain from fifteen feet away?”

Magnus arches an eyebrow at him. Even pale and with his eyes—now back to their human brown—at half-mast, no one does ‘utterly unimpressed’ quite like Jace’s brother-in-law. It’s one of Jace’s least favorite things about him—that, and how often Jace is on the receiving end of it.

“No. I ‘got that’ from having felt my magic being sucked out of me less than two minutes ago,” Magnus says and, okay, maybe Jace walked into that one.

The words cost him, though, as Magnus bows forward and hacks out another round of dry, painful-sounding coughs.

Alec adjusts his grip, sending Jace a glare that, if Jace wasn’t already busy being worried about Magnus, he’d definitely worry about his own life.

“No more talking,” Alec says when Magnus’s coughing has dialed down to wheezing. “From either of you. Lochan clearly isn’t here and hasn’t been for a while. Jace—”

“I’ll report back and contact the other teams,” Jace says, having no problem reading the current of protectiveness flooding the bond, or the concern underneath the brusqueness in Alec’s voice. “You guys go ahead.”

His eyes shift to Magnus—who meets his gaze and inclines his head that he’s good.

Jace watches the two of them leave the room, Alec fussing and muttering something about calling Catarina and Magnus rolling his eyes but allowing the manhandling.

When they’re gone, Jace walks over to the splatter on the wall. He yanks Alec’s arrow from its embedded position and, with his other hand, unsheathes his dagger. He proceeds to carve out a portion on the damp tapestry to give to Izzy for testing. As he works, his lips purse as the image of Magnus, lying on the ground and struggling to breathe, flashes before his eyes.

He stabs the wall with renewed purpose. It’s not happening again. Not if he can help it.

They look after their own.


	20. Trembling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** None.

“The river will flood the village in minutes,” Chinaza, the village chieftain, says. “We won’t be able to evacuate everyone in time.”

Cat glances at Magnus. He’s rubbing at his bottom lip, eyes dark. An all-too-familiar sense of foreboding sweeps through her.

“What are the measurements of the pass?” he asks.

“If you’re thinking a magical floodgate, we don’t have enough time to establish one,” Cat says. “And a shield, even a powerful one, would need to be actively sustained. It won’t solve the problem.”

“I know.”

“At its longest and highest?” Chinaza says when Magnus keeps looking at her expectantly. “At least sixty feet long and sixty feet high. When the river comes, it will wipe out the entire valley in seconds.”

Magnus gazes off towards the mountain pass. Something shifts in his eyes. He straightens and snaps his fingers, a portal appearing.

“Don’t wait up,” he says with a wink her way, and disappears.

Cat isn’t the least bit surprised. She has known Magnus for centuries and is fluent in his specific brand of dramatics and depths of self-sacrifice.

Unfortunately, so is his husband.

“He _what_?” Alec hisses when Cat finds him down in the fray, shuffling people along, trying to get them as far away from the danger zone as they can. Not for the first time, she regrets calling them here; of course, the reason had nothing to do with an imminent flooding and the subsequent death of hundreds of people, but bad luck seems to follow these two wherever they go.

Before she can say anything, a great boom reverberates through the valley, making the huts closest to them shake. The ground rumbles under their feet, as if gearing up for an earthquake.

“Portal me up there.”

Cat turns to see Alec stare towards the mountain pass. It’s only partially visible through the trees; but the sandy cloud that swells directly above it stands out clear as day against the icy blue sky.

“This isn’t a demonic problem,” she says. “Your sword and arrows won’t be of any use to him.”

Concern for her friend squirms behind her ribcage, but she won’t let Alec put himself in danger for no good reason. Magnus would never forgive her.

“I need to help him.”

Cat shakes her head.

“You need to be here to—Alec.” She grabs his arm as he makes to walk away. “Listen to me: Magnus will be fine. He is one of the smartest, most powerful warlocks alive. He knows what he’s doing.”

Alec’s eyes are sharp and far too knowing.

“Do you know?”

Cat sighs.

“No.” She meets his gaze. “But I trust him. You need to do the same.” She jerks her head towards the houses behind them. “This is where you need to be. Up there, you’ll only be a distraction to him,” she adds, when she sees him gear up to argue. “It would put both of you at unnecessary risk.”

Alec’s lips press together. The conflict on his face is clear as day, but eventually, he nods. Cat squeezes his arm and lets go.

They go door to door, evacuating people, Alec carrying those incapable of walking on their own and Cat doing all that she can with magic. They’ve just reached the outer section of the village when the ground beneath Cat’s feet trembles, so violently that she stumbles to her knees. A roar rolls through the canyon like thunder.

Cat peers over her shoulder at the cloud erupting from the tips of the trees like a volcanic smoke ring. Whatever Magnus is doing, it’s working, or they would’ve all been submerged in water by now.

She gets to her feet and sees Alec looking towards the mountain with a pinched expression. She opens her mouth, but he simply adjusts his grip on the two small children on his back and continues towards the safe zone.

Approximately half an hour later, she’s standing at the edge of an elevated piece of land, staring towards the other side of the canyon. Beside her, Alec is practically vibrating with nervous energy.

“It’s been ten minutes since the last explosion and there is no sign of water,” he says, picking at the skin between his thumb and forefinger. “He should’ve been back by now.”

Cat wants to reassure him, tell him to be patient, that Magnus will portal out before them at any second, smirking and looking as impeccably dressed as always.

But, frankly, she is running out of patience.

She opens a portal.

“Let’s go find him, then.”

They step out at the bottom of what looks like a massive rock fall. Everywhere around them, the once-green ground has given way to a landscape of stone and cracked earth. The mouth of the pass has been blocked by a barrier of stone that stretches from one side of the mountain wall to the other. Water trickles out from a few fissures, wetting the rocks. Some of them are covered in scorch marks and soot.

Cat shakes her head, even as her lips twitch.

_He triggered a landslide._

“Magnus?” Alec calls, scanning their surroundings. He turns to her. “Where is he?”

Cat focuses her magic. It tugs in her veins as it finds what she’s searching for.

But when her eyes follow the pull of her magic, she freezes.

Alec stares at the pile of rocks a few feet away from them. The speed with which all color drains from his face is something Cat has only ever seen on those with severed arteries.

“No.” He shakes his head. His body rocks forward. “No. Cat—”

Her magic seeps in-between the stones like water, going deeper, branching out, until it brushes against flesh ensconced in familiar sparks.

She pulls.

The rocks are shoved off to the side, revealing a pair of Vagabond boots and an intricately detailed dark-blue jacket.

“Magnus!” Alec shouts, leaping over the uneven terrain, Cat close behind.

His clothes are ripped in places and every inch of him is covered in dust—but Magnus’s eyes blink open to watch them blearily as they drop to their knees beside him.

“Oh,” he sighs, closing his eyes briefly. “There you are.”

“Hey.” Alec leans down into his line of sight, one hand cupping his neck. “You okay? Where are you hurt?”

Magnus hums. His fingers brush the sleeve of Alec’s jacket.

“Help me up?”

Alec glances at Cat, who gives him a nod.

Magnus groans as Alec eases him up into sitting and leans him against his chest. He watches through hooded eyes as Cat shifts closer, magic sparking at her fingertips.

“What took you so long?”

“We figured some time to contemplate your suicidal actions might teach you some self-preservation,” Cat replies. She raises an eyebrow pointedly. “Clearly, it did nothing for your manners.”

Magnus huffs, and winces, one arm bracing his torso.

“Rude.”

“This was your grand plan? To drop a mountain on top of yourself?” she asks, even as her magic sinks into Magnus’s bruised body, healing fractured bones and lacerations.

“Admittedly, that part was an unforeseen consequence.”

Alec is rubbing a hand down his back, deep furrows on his brow.

Magnus gives him a tired smile.

“Alexander—”

“Shut up,” Alec says without heat. “I’m mad at you.”

Magnus shifts enough to rest his forehead against his husband’s neck, sighing.

“I’m sorry, darling. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Damn right you are. Starting with letting me take care of you for the rest of the evening—and no more magic until tomorrow.”

“Alec—”

“Don’t even start, Magnus.”

Cat bows her head, hiding her smile, and refocuses on her task of healing her idiot friend. She’ll leave the rest of his “punishment” to his husband.


	21. Laced Drink

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Non-consensual touching and kissing of a drugged character. Nothing explicit (no rape; all clothes stay on) but still, read at your own discretion.

There is something wrong with his drink.

Alec isn’t much of a drinker, but he’s had enough whiskey—and had Magnus tell him enough about whiskey—to know that it’s not supposed to taste like this—is definitely not supposed to burn like _this_.

He grabs the bar counter when the room starts to melt before him. The music slows, as if playing in slow motion. The dancing bodies on the floor elongate, the flashing lights dripping neon through the air.

_Salvador Dalí painting._

Alec shakes his head—and tightens his grip on the sticky bar when the image before him swims, sending the dinner he’d shared with Magnus two hours ago crowding up his throat.

Magnus.

He needs to find Magnus.

He can’t see him through the crowd, too many moving bodies that keep floating into each other, and instead reaches into his pocket, fumbling for his phone.

_This is why you never let your guard down at an event hosted by Seelies_. It wouldn’t surprise him if the Queen was behind this, still harboring some resentment after everything that happened with Jonathan.

Someone bumps into him just as he’s managed to unlock the screen. The phone glides towards the ground, reflecting the electrical beams of light that cut through the room. Given how slowly it’s falling, Alec should have time to grab it, but his brain is too muddled to issue the command for his arms to move.

Next thing he knows, the phone is staring up at him from the floor, screen dark and cracked.

He needs to get out. Now.

He takes a step away from the bar—only for a hand to close around his arm.

Alec blinks, trying to focus on the face that swims into view in front of him. The vines crawling up his throat and the pointed ears identify him as a Seelie. He’s tall, taller than Magnus, when he’s not wearing insoles in his shoes. His hair is dark and laid to one side, like Meliorn’s, but shorter, his eyes a startling green peering out through a face the color of melted honey.

_Hot._

Alec flinches, from the thought as well as the man’s smirk.

Did he say that out loud?

“Hello, handsome,” the Seelie says. “You look like you could use some company.”

“I…” Finding words is like trying to get a solid grip on a Cecaelia demon. They keep slipping through his grasp. “I’m with someone.”

The man purses his lips. He steps in closer. The bar counter digs into Alec’s back as he stumbles into it. His legs feel like water.

“But you’re alone right now, are you not?” A hand—strong, elegant, warm—presses into Alec’s chest. Alec wants to push him off, but his arms remain motionless at his sides. “How about we have some fun? Put on a bit of a show?”

“What...” Every instinct he has bellows _danger_. “No.” He shakes his head. Two sets of emerald eyes glimmer up at him. “No. Back off…”

All words escape him on a hitched moan when the man’s palm touches his neck. It’s like a branding iron that doesn’t burn, pouring molten lava down his spine. The grip tightens and he gasps, his body submerged in steaming water and his skin flaring with fire. A flaming spear glides through his lips, licking heat into his mouth.

He’s kissing someone.

He’s kissing someone who isn’t Magnus.

He jerks backwards, but there’s nowhere to go. He raises his hands, intent on pushing the man away—but the moment his palms make contact with his chest, his fingers relax, fan out over the hard ridges underneath too-sheer fabric. The Seelie nips at his lip, and pure sunshine shoots through him like a lightning bolt. He feels like he’s boiling, like he’s melting, and he is helpless to moan again.

“Alexander! There you are.”

That intoxicating heat is ripped away and Alec whimpers as cold air brushes his lips. Then it registers—not the words, but the _voice_—and his eyes snap open.

Magnus’s mouth is smiling, but his eyes shimmer in gold and thinly veiled rage.

“I believe it’s time I take my husband home.” Magnus wedges himself between the two of them, bodily removing the Seelie. His fingers curl around Alec’s arm in a grip just short of bruising. “If you’ll excuse us.”

The Seelie bows his head.

“Of course.” His green gaze fixes on Alec. “We were just getting to know each other. I was told that we might have some… shared interests.”

“I’m sure,” Magnus says, voice cold. “You may inform the Queen that any services she may require will no longer be provided by the warlocks of New York.”

Magnus doesn’t wait for a response before he starts dragging Alec away, leaving Alec no choice but to stumble after him through the sea of bodies and tangible light. The thoughts moving through his mind are as organized as a trampled anthill. He only feels his body, shapeless and floating, and his skin, burning.

Magnus lets go of him the moment they step through the portal and into the loft, heading towards the apothecary without a word. Alec lingers in the hallway and listens to the rumble of drawers being pulled open and the clink of glass against metal.

Magnus returns with an assortment of vials in his hands and a book under his arm, placing them all on the living-room table.

Alec takes in the rigid set of his shoulders and swallows.

“You’re angry.”

Magnus exhales through his nose.

“Alexander—”

“I didn’t want to kiss him.” His body had wanted it, though—his body _still_ wants it, even if the desperation is starting to fade. He has trained his entire life for his actions to be an extension of his thoughts, never the other way around. This feels like the ultimate kind of betrayal.

Magnus pauses. But he doesn’t turn around, and Alec doesn’t know if it’s because he didn’t hear what Alec said, words stumbling over each other on his leaden tongue, or because he’s that mad with him. Who could blame him? Alec’s lips still tingle with the phantom sensation of another man’s mouth on him.

He should’ve stopped it.

By the Angel, why hadn’t he stopped it?

“I’m sorry,” he says—or, tries to say. “I don’t know what—I wouldn’t—I’d never—” He takes a breath. Everything has thankfully stopped _dripping_, but every word still feels like it’s being dragged from the bottom of Lake Lyn. Fire courses through him. He feels like he’s overheating, like the air is too hot, his heart beating too fast. “Do you—do you want me to leave?”

Magnus has the most expressive eyes of anyone Alec has ever met, both his human ones and his natural ones, and even through the haze, Alec has no trouble reading the sorrow and anger as Magnus turns to look at him.

“Alexander, no.” Magnus closes the gap between them, close enough to touch although he makes no move to.

Maybe he’s as disgusted with him as Alec himself is.

“_Darling_,” Magnus breathes. “You’ve done nothing wrong. I’m _furious_ at the Seelie Queen, and at that _leech_ that plastered himself all over you, but I’m not angry with _you_.”

He raises his hands tentatively, and Alec can’t resist nuzzling into his palms, shivering at the skin-on-skin contact.

“You’re the most honorable man I know, Alexander,” Magnus says. “You would never hurt me like that.”

He wouldn’t. He’d rather cut out his own heart with a serrated knife than do that to Magnus.

But.

“But I did,” Alec whispers, and, this time, the burning of his skin has nothing to do with arousal.

He kissed someone who wasn’t Magnus. What’s worse, he _liked_ it.

“Listen to me,” Magnus says, enunciating every word slowly. “I love you. What happened was out of your control and _not_ your fault. None of the responsibility falls on you, nor any of the blame.”

Alec doesn’t know if he believes him, but his brain is too muddled to find any good arguments for why he shouldn’t.

Magnus inclines his head towards the couch.

“Come. Let’s see if we can’t speed things along.”

Alec allows himself to be led to the couch. Shame licks up his spine, heating his neck—but, for now, he forces himself to listen to what Magnus is saying, to focus on his kind eyes and gentle voice and the love he offers so freely although Alec isn’t entirely convinced that he deserves it after what he did.

Tomorrow.

He can start his penance tomorrow.


	22. Hallucinations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Character death (though I refer you to the prompt word for the legitimacy of those deaths). Some gore. I genuinely _suck_ at rating things, but this chapter probably has a T rating (because of the gore in the “deaths”). Maybe higher, I have no clue. If you’re unsure, see the end notes for what happens.
> 
> This one was seriously such a blast to write.

“Magnus!”

Alec stumbles over the bodies of fallen Downworlders as he runs through the Institute. His eyes dart over their scorched faces, relief—and shame over feeling relieved—burning through him at not seeing the one face he’s searching for.

He flings himself into another corridor, and another, and another.

“Magnus!”

He slips on an arm or maybe a leg and careens into the wall. His heart thunders in his throat, ragged breaths echoing through the silence. He lifts his head, palm flat against the wood, ready to launch himself forward—and stills.

At the end of the hall. A black jacket and a familiar, ringed hand.

There is no air in his lungs, only horror.

“No.”

He’s walking, and then he’s running, throwing himself onto the floor where Magnus lies on his stomach, unmoving. Burn marks cover his face and neck.

His fingers tremble when they reach for Magnus’s throat, searching for a pulse, but the golden eyes staring through him, unseeing, already speaks the truth.

“No.” Alec shakes his head, then grabs Magnus’s shoulder and shakes him. “No. Magnus. Come on.”

He pulls Magnus, heavy and limp and unresisting, into his arms, cradling him against his chest. Magnus’s head lolls into Alec’s neck. His skin is cold.

“Please,” Alec rasps. He buries his face in Magnus’s hair, still smelling faintly of sandalwood. “Please. I love you. I love you. Please...”

He opens his eyes.

Magnus is gone.

Alec stares at the empty space in his arms before frantically shooting up from the floor.

Before him, he sees himself standing in a lit-up cell, Imogen Herondale next to him. And, strapped in a chair in the middle of the room, Valentine.

Except it’s not Valentine.

The Inquisitor advances on him, dagger in hand.

“No!” Alec yells, and he’s running, but he’s too far away. The other him stands behind the chair, doing nothing. “Stop! It’s not Valentine!”

The Inquisitor raises her hand.

“_Stop!_”

The blade slices through flesh. Valentine’s features morph until it’s Magnus’s face, twisted in fear and pain. Blood gushes from his cut throat in a crimson stream.

“_No!_”

Lake Lyn stretches out before him, its dark waters reflecting Raziel hovering above its surface, shrouded in heavenly light.

“What is it you ask of me?” the Angel’s voice booms.

“Immediate death to all evil-blooded creatures,” Valentine shouts. “Demon and Downworlder alike.”

Alec whips his head around just as Magnus falls to the ground, screaming.

“Magnus!”

He rushes through the ruins of Asmodeus’s dwellings, hope and desperation pounding through his veins with every step. His heart beats a wild rhythm of _Magnus, Magnus, Magnus_.

He rounds a corner, and there he is, standing in the middle of the room, golden-eyed and alive and perfect. His fiancé.

Alec’s lips start to climb up in a smile.

“Magn—”

A hand bursts out of Magnus’s chest, sharp-nailed and slick with blood. Magnus makes a gurgling sound, color draining from his face and pouring out his mouth, darkening his chin and throat.

“_No!_”

Alec surges forward and is flung into the wall, his head banging against stone. Lilith appears, leaning her head on Magnus’s shoulder.

“Silly boy. Did you really think that you were going to save him?” She yanks her hand out of Magnus’s chest and he falls to the ground, a gaping hole where his heart used to be. “I’m afraid you’re too late.”

“No!” Alec screams, straining against the magical chains. “_Magnus!_”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a son to murder and a world to conquer.” Darkness shoots from Lilith’s hands and slams into him, dissolving the wall behind him and sending him flying.

Magnus’s lifeless eyes is the last thing he sees.

*

The room is bathed in gloom, lit only by one of the bedside lamps and the restless flicker of red and blue. The intermittent screams and whimpers from the bed’s occupant is the only sound.

A hand lands on his shoulder.

“He’ll be okay,” Cat says softly.

Magnus nods but doesn’t look at her. Every breath makes his lungs shiver with grief and fury.

_Yanluo._

If Magnus could bring the Greater Demon back just so he could destroy him again, he would—he’d draw on everything he learned under father’s tutelage, every vile, cruel method he knows—but he’s gone. For good, this time.

But not before he stung Alec, flooding his bloodstream with poison.

_Forty-eight hours._

Magnus closes his eyes with a shaky sigh. Forty-eight hours. That’s how long it could take before the poison burns itself out. Alec is only on thirty-two—with tears streaming down his pale face and sounding like someone is repeatedly stabbing him through the heart.

Magnus doesn’t know what his husband is seeing in these horrid hallucinations, but, given the repetition of his own name, he can imagine.

“Magnus!” Alec cries, hoarse and wretched, and Magnus shushes him, his own cheeks wet, even though he knows that Alec can’t hear him. His magic skitters over his skin, distressed and desperate to heal, but there is nothing he can do.

There is nothing he can do but wait, and watch his love suffer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alec hallucinates that Magnus dies in 2x10 (the Soulmate Sword), 2x12 (the body-switch), 2x20 (the Angel), and 3x21 (Lilith). So, those scenes as they are on the show (more or less), but with Magnus dying.


	23. Bleeding Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** None.

Magnus watches through hooded eyes as his husband rummages through the room, muttering curses under his breath. Alec isn’t usually one for cursing, so whatever is wrong must be bad. Magnus should probably go help him look for whatever it is he’s searching for, or at least make him calm down a little, because all his back-and-forths are making Magnus dizzy.

But he is dense yet shapeless, like a body of water, floating in the air. It’s a feeling not unlike being high—though he can’t imagine Alec would ever condone drugs. And, what’s more, Magnus hasn’t used for decades… centuries? He can’t recall. And, if he were to take up the habit again, he certainly would have found a more aesthetically pleasing locale than the one they currently find themselves in.

Where are they, anyway?

Wherever it is, it’s cold. Magnus hasn’t felt this cold since… he can’t really remember that, either. A long time ago. When he was a boy, wandering the streets of Batavia, starving. Or maybe when he lost his magic. He had been cold then, too.

His magic always keeps him warm. He tries to reach for it, but he can’t find it. It must be sleeping. Maybe he should sleep, too.

“Magnus.”

Magnus is sure he didn’t close his eyes—or maybe he did, because Alexander is suddenly there, crouching in front of him and staring at him with wide hazels.

Is he sitting down? No wonder he’s cold; basement floors are always freezing. The penthouse level is far superior, not to mention that there, he has a bed—a warm, soft bed, and Alexander, warm and soft and preferably naked in his arms.

They really should be home instead of here.

Why aren’t they home?

_Something is definitely wrong_, Magnus thinks again, but he’s too distracted by the angel in front of him to really care at the moment. Alec is talking—or, at least his mouth is moving, although Magnus can’t make out the words. That’s all right, though. He is more than content to simply watch his husband, even if he is a tad paler than usual.

His husband. The great Magnus Bane, married, and to a Nephilim, no less. Who would have thought? Certainly not Magnus. But then, Alexander is a constant surprise to him, even after half a decade of marriage.

“_Magnus_,” Alec repeats. His palm is warm on Magnus’s cheek and neck, even if his grip is a bit too tight. “Hey. You need to keep pressure on that, okay?”

He hums. It feels like the right thing to do. He definitely shouldn’t do what he wants to do, which is giggle, because he knows that furrow on his husband’s brow all too well. Alec is worried.

Maybe he should try to pay some attention.

“Are you…” Is that his voice? It sounds awfully faint, slightly slurred. Did he hit his head? “‘Kay?”

Alec’s mouth quirks. It’s more grimace than smile, but he tries. Alec always tries, always wants to do better, bends himself over and backwards to avoid disappointing people, even though he’s perfect just the way he is.

Magnus should tell him that more often.

“Yeah, but you’re not,” Alec says and Magnus blinks at him.

He’s not… what?

He wants to ask, is about to ask, when a ball of fire is thrust into his ribcage.

He barely hears himself gasp, hands fumbling over his chest, slipping over Alec’s own. Why is Alec hurting him?

“Shh,” Alec murmurs, something in his expression wavering. “I know. I know. I’m sorry. But we need to keep pressure on it, okay?”

Magnus’s head dips and—

Oh.

Oh, that’s not good.

“You’re not dying,” Alec says, and Magnus blinks again. Really? Given the amount of blood soaking through his shirt and waistband and covering both of their hands, that would’ve been his conclusion.

“I’m gonna get you out of here, okay?” Alec says. It’s too hurried to be convincing, but Magnus believes him anyway. Alec doesn’t lie to him. Not anymore. Not since—

“You need to stay awake, Magnus. Stay with me.”

Magnus would never leave Alec, not willingly. He had tried to, before, and only succeeded in making himself miserable.

Does he know, that he’s the brightest point of Magnus’s whole existence? Magnus wants to tell him that, but he can’t make his lips form the words. He’s getting cold again, the fire in his chest burning out as quickly as it flared, but it’s a soft kind of cold. One that doesn’t hurt.

Good. He’s tired of hurting.

Alec is talking again and Magnus wants to listen, but he’s exhausted.

He doesn’t mean to close his eyes.

~ ~ ~ 

There is a vaguely familiar ceiling staring down at him.

Magnus squints in the sharp white light. There’s a quiet whirring of machines from somewhere, and a soft beeping to his left. Coarse sheets chafe against his skin—also vaguely familiar…

The Institute infirmary.

Magnus closes his eyes with a soft moan. He feels weak and cold, his insides a damp, empty well. He reaches for remembrance and finds an assortment of fractured images, sharp and disjointed…

His eyes snap open.

He strains his neck, head lifting from the pillow—

Alec sits in a chair next to the bed, watching him with keen hazels accentuated by the dark circles underneath.

“Alexander,” he sighs and relaxes back into the bed, lips pulling into a tired but relieved smile.

Alec’s own twitch, his shoulders loosening incrementally.

“Hey. How are you feeling?”

“Better than expected, I think.” He remembers blood—enough of it to be concerning. He shifts further up the headboard, Alec immediately darting up to help. “What happened…”

He trails off, eyes zeroing in on the gauze peeking out from under Alec’s shirt.

“You’re hurt.” He frowns at his husband. “I don’t remember you being hurt.” Granted, there are a lot of things that he doesn’t remember, but, even half out of his mind with blood loss, he would’ve noticed if Alec was injured.

Wouldn’t he?

Alec briefly averts his gaze and dread pools in Magnus’s stomach although he doesn’t know why. When Alec looks back at him, his posture is straight, his expression calm—like a soldier who knows that he broke the rules and who is fully prepared to accept the consequences, knowing that he would do the same thing again.

“I needed to get their attention.”

Magnus stares at him. Then stares at the bandages—hidden from view but that he now knows are wrapped around Alec’s stomach. It’s insane, suicidal—a testimony of a devotion that borders on destructive.

It’s exactly like something that Alec would do.

“You stabbed yourself,” he whispers. He feels cold all over again. “Alec, what were you thinking? You could have _died_.”

“Then I would’ve died,” Alec says, as if the idea, the _reality_ of it someday happening, doesn’t cleave Magnus’s heart in two. “Jace felt me get hurt. That was the only reason they knew something was wrong.” His voice softens, something too close to grief passing over his face. “You were practically dead when they found us. Cat almost didn’t manage to bring you back.”

Magnus swallows. He doesn’t remember being afraid, but he’s been there for enough loved ones when they have taken their final breath to know that Alec must have been terrified.

He reaches out and Alec takes his hand, sits down on the bed.

“I’d do anything for you,” he murmurs into Magnus’s knuckles, his eyes never leaving Magnus’s own. “If it’s to keep you safe, there is nothing I wouldn’t give.”

All Magnus can do is smile through his love and heartache.

“I know, my love.”

That’s what scares him.


	24. Secret Injury

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** None.
> 
> Not so much a "secret" injury as a potential/unconfirmed one, I guess.

It’s well past midnight when Magnus finally makes it home. Shadows trail after him as he steps over the threshold and into the darkness of the loft, as does whatever lingering traces of energy he has left. He likes his job, but it is, at times, a thankless one, and today… today, he just wants to forget.

He sheds his jacket and the mask of High Warlock before the door is fully closed behind him. He thinks he could quite possibly fall asleep right where he stands, but he’d prefer to collapse in bed and curl around his boyfriend—and sleep until the sun stands high on the sky, preferable the day after tomorrow.

The thought nudges his sluggish body into movement. He’s almost all the way to the bedroom when his brain registers what his eyes had seen.

Frowning, Magnus retraces his steps until he’s back in the living-room. There, on the balcony, a familiar, tall frame, outlined by the meager light from the streets below.

His stomach tightens.

The door creaks softly when he opens it. At this hour, sound is scarce and distant this far up, but his arrival, while most certainly heard, garners no reaction.

“Alexander?”

“Hey.” The monotone of Alec’s voice immediately sets Magnus on edge. “Rough day?”

Magnus ignores him.

“It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing out here?”

Alec’s shoulder rises on an aborted shrug, too stiff to be casual. Alarm bells blare like sirens in Magnus’s head.

He pads out onto the balcony, coming up to stand next to his boyfriend. Alec’s profile is blurred in shadows and weariness. He’s leaning on his forearms, head slightly bowed and hunched in on himself. Everything about him screams of pain and self-reproach and the sight squeezes Magnus’s lungs.

“What happened?”

“I lost a Shadowhunter,” Alec says, in that same horrible monotone. “Eva Greendale. She was seventeen.”

Magnus closes his eyes. As a leader, losing people is inevitable, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

He places a hand on Alec’s forearm.

“I’m sorry, Alexander.”

“Yeah.” Alec allows the touch for another breath before he shifts. Warm leather turns into cool stone under Magnus’s palm. “You should go to bed.”

And, just like that, Magnus knows.

“Are you hurt?”

He was injured on a mission two days ago, when a Forsaken almost cut his waist in half with a rusty chain. The wound has yet to fully close. Magnus only agreed to let him return to the Institute today because he said he’d be stuck in his office doing paperwork.

Alec shakes his head.

“I wasn’t there.”

_That’s not what I meant_, Magnus thinks. Because he knows how Alec handles bad news, especially ones that he believes himself responsible for, and he glances at his boyfriend’s hands. They hang over the balcony’s edge, folded over each other, obscured in shadows.

He _hopes_ it’s only shadows.

If Alec went into that training room, there is no way he didn’t reopen the wound at his side. And, given his current state of mind, chances of him using an iratze afterwards are so slim that they might as well be nonexistent.

“I’ll try not to wake you,” Alec murmurs, and Magnus swallows at the dismissal.

“I would rest easier with you in my arms.” His concerns notwithstanding, that will always be true.

He learned a long time ago that trying to force help onto someone who doesn’t want it is the very definition of a pointless endeavor; especially if the person in question is a 6’3, stubborn Shadowhunter. It doesn’t make him worry any less.

“In a minute,” Alec says and Magnus sighs, closing his eyes.

“All right, my love.” He tears himself from the banister, pausing in the doorway. “Just, promise me one thing?” He takes a steadying breath, but the words still wobble when he says, “Promise me that I won’t wake up tomorrow to find you bleeding out on my balcony?”

He has seen enough of Alec’s blood spilled to last a lifetime, even one as long as his own.

It’s quiet for so long that he starts to think that he won’t get an answer, when a barely audible, “Yeah,” drifts into the space between them. It’s nowhere near what Magnus wants—but, if that’s all that Alec can give him right now, he’ll take it.

He reenters the loft and makes his way towards the bedroom, leaving his heart bruised and bleeding behind him.

Sleep doesn’t come easy that night.


	25. Humiliation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Dub-con kissing.
> 
> Can't say I'm particularly pleased with this one, but I'm determined to finish with these before November starts, so it'll have to do.
> 
> Also, I know I'm really behind on answering all of y'alls comments; it's because I'm frantically working on the prompts. But seeing them pop up in my inbox never fails to bring a smile to my face, so thank you. I appreciate all of you <3

The prisons in Idris are not a place Alec ever wanted to see Magnus in. It’s all too easy to imagine another world where things played out differently, and where he would’ve been locked up here with other Downworlders. Alec hates it almost as much as he hates the reason why they’re here.

He glances to his right.

Magnus is dressed in black vagabond boots, dark pants accentuating a silver-patterned belt, and a faded blue jacket with metal-details on the shoulders that covers a red button-up shirt that Alec knows is just as soft to the touch as it looks. His hair is donned in his signature mohawk with streaks of crimson.

He looks like a High Warlock, like the son of a Prince of Hell, powerful and untouchable. But Alec has become quite adept at reading through the layers of extravagant fabrics and sparkling eyeshadow. Magnus is just as apprehensive about this as he is.

_You don’t have to do this_. He’s starting to feel like a parrot for how often he’s said that very line since they had burned through every other option except for this one. And every time, Magnus had just looked at him with a rueful smile in his eyes and said, _There’s nothing she can take from me that she hasn’t already, Alexander_. As if that was supposed to make Alec hate this idea _less_.

But it’s too late to back down now.

The door before them opens, the Shadowhunter stepping aside to let them through.

The elevator takes them to the subterranean level. She must have heard their approach, because her eyes are on them the moment they round the corner. 

“Magnus,” Camille’s voice slithers towards them. “Here to break me out? I knew you would come to your senses eventually.”

Magnus’s lips curl up in the barest hint of a bland smile.

“I’m here for business.”

Camille pouts. Even ensconced in a straitjacket, locked up in the heart of Shadowhunter territory, she somehow manages to look unfazed. As if this is exactly where she had planned to be.

“You’re not even going to ask how I’ve been? How these people have treated me?” Her eyes narrow. “Considering you’re the one who put me here.”

“Your welfare is of no interest to me,” Magnus says smoothly, coming to a stop in front of her cell, Alec half a step behind him. “I’m looking for Arthur Scotts.”

“You’re here about that spineless worm of a man?” Camille sighs. “How dull.”

“I’ve heard you may know where to find him.”

Camille tilts her head. The look in her eyes as she seizes Magnus up is far too predatory for someone who is behind bars. Alec’s fingers itch for his blade.

Camille’s gaze flickers to him.

“Still not over your little infatuation, I see.” She tuts. “It’s starting to become a little obsessive, don’t you think? Mortals—”

“Yes, we’ve had this conversation already,” Magnus interrupts. “Arthur Scotts?”

Camille hums.

“I might know where he is. Of course, everything has a price.”

Magnus waves a hand, the embodiment of a bored businessman—though Alec has no trouble reading the tension in his stance, the same that is holding his spine hostage.

“What do you want, Camille?”

Her smile is sharp and all teeth in the dull overhead light.

“A kiss.”

Alec blinks. Beside him, Magnus goes still.

“You’re willing to give up Scotts’ location… in exchange for a kiss?” Alec asks.

“Not the sharpest one, are you?” Camille tilts her head towards Magnus and lowers her voice conspiratorially. “He must be a very skilled lover.”

“Camille,” Magnus grinds out and she rolls her eyes.

“One kiss. On the mouth,” she says, sweet as belladonna and just as deadly. “_With_ tongue. Then I’ll tell you where to find what you’re looking for.”

She’s playing with them. Alec is sure: she is the most despicable being he has ever met. The urge to grab Magnus and drag him out of here, as far away from this conniving bitch with her far too calculating eyes is thundering through his bloodstream.

Magnus’s jaw clenches.

“Fine.”

He takes a step forward but Camille tuts, waving a finger at him—as much as she’s able from her strung-up position.

“Who said anything about you?” Her eyes slant to Alec, vamp teeth flashing. “No, I want to know what is so special about your latest plaything.”

Alec blinks.

_What?_

Pressure builds in his ears, his lungs, and then disappears just as quickly. Glancing at his boyfriend, Alec sees the faintest traces of red over Magnus’s knuckles. By the wall, the two Shadowhunters who escorted them here shift.

“We’re leaving,” Magnus says flatly.

Alec grabs him by the elbow when he turns towards the exit, eyes never straying from Camille’s knowing gaze.

Kiss his boyfriend’s manipulative ex, or let a madman running around summoning greater demons remain loose on the streets of New York. As much as the thought sickens him, there is really only one choice.

“Deal.”

“Alexander…” Magnus’s expression is stuck in a mix of frustration, sorrow, and, of all things, guilt. “You don’t have to do this.”

Alec squeezes his arm.

“It’s fine.”

He steps forward, acutely aware of their audience—not to mention the three surveillance cameras fixed on them. It’s humiliating, being a pawn in Camille’s sick games, but he is a soldier, first and foremost. He’s done unsavory things before—never mind that he’s having a hard time coming up with anything worse than what he’s about to do now.

“Open the door,” he orders, and one of the Shadowhunters immediately steps forward.

“If you hurt him, Camille…” Magnus says from behind him.

“And how would I do that?” She cocks her head as Alec steps into the room, looking at him like a lizard eyeing a mouse. “I’ve heard all about you, you know. Mommy’s and Daddy’s perfect little soldier with his _deviant_ inclinations. I’m curious, have you ever kissed a girl before?”

“Let’s get this over with,” Alec mutters. He can feel Magnus’s eyes on him, knows that there are at least three Shadowhunters watching him as well, being forced to dance like a puppet on a string. It makes his blood boil—based on the way Camille smirks at him, that’s the whole point.

It shouldn’t be possible, but that pisses him off even more, and he strides towards her even as she starts talking.

“You’re going to find it hard to fulfill your end of the deal from all the way over—” 

He grabs her by the neck and crashes their lips together.

It’s like kissing a snake. Her lips are cold, her tongue even more so—it moves like a needle, digging into his mouth like it wants to slither down his throat. She tastes like blood and corruption and death.

There’s a pinprick of pain and Alec jerks back with a startled gasp. His fingers wipe at his lips. The pads come back smeared with red.

He feels the surge of power and turns just in time to catch Magnus in his forward momentum.

Humming, Camille licks the blood from her lips.

“A bit too sweet for my taste.”

“Arthur Scotts,” Alec demands. Magnus is so tense he’s vibrating in his arms. Alec can feel the magic, brushing over his skin like static.

“Cuba,” Camille answers him, though her eyes are on Magnus, sparkling with mirth. “He owns a bar called El Tío in Las Tunas.”

Alec doesn’t look at her as he grabs Magnus by the arm and starts towards the exit.

“You’ll come back.”

Magnus stiffens.

“One way or another, he’ll leave you,” Camille continues, soft and sure. “Just like they all do. And when he does, you’ll come back to me, because that’s what _you_ always do.”

Magnus doesn’t say anything. The expression on his face, vulnerable and sad and almost defeated before he schools it into indifference, is enough to make Alec want to march back and stab Camille with his dagger. Repeatedly.

Instead, he tugs on Magnus’s arm.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

The moment the door to the prison closes behind them, Magnus’s hands are on his face, sparking with magic. Alec can feel the puncture wound in his lip heal.

“Alexander, I am so—”

“She’s a scheming, manipulative bitch who knows exactly what to say and do to hurt people, none of which is your fault.” He grabs Magnus’s wrists, squeezing. “I’m fine.” His cheeks still feel like they’re burning, and the fact that this will likely be the talk of Idris tomorrow is something he’d rather not think about. That’s not where his thoughts are anyway.

_One way or another, he’ll leave you. And when he does, you’ll come back to me._

He swallows. He doesn’t know what hurts more: the inevitability of his own death, or the idea of Magnus going back to Camille. He wants to say that it’s absurd, that Magnus knows better than that—that he _is_ better than that. But he also knows that it’s not that simple.

Something must show on his face, because Magnus takes a step away from him and claps his hands together.

“Well, I suppose a trip to Cuba is in order, then. Shall we?”

He doesn’t wait for a response before he starts striding towards the arch with the permanent portals, his steps purposeful.

Alec watches him go with a sigh.

Fuck Camille for getting into their heads so easily.


	26. Abandoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Mentions of children being held captive and starved. Very much only alluded to.
> 
> This is honestly so soft wtf even.

They’ve been running through the tunnels to the sound of demonic roaring and their own panted breaths for so long that the only thing that should rightfully await them on this next turn is an exit.

Instead, they get a dead end.

Alec’s lungs tighten as he halts, panting, and it’s not just because of the extra weight attached to him. He knows the look of resigned determination on his boyfriend’s face all too well.

“Magnus…”

“We don’t have a choice. It knows them,” Magnus says, and by which he means, _it knows what they taste like_. “It will keep coming after them, until…”

Until there is nothing left to feed on. Or, until it’s been destroyed.

As if on cue, the tunnel shakes with a roar that makes Alec stumble to keep his balance. The children clinging to his torso whimper. The oldest one, a girl of six, is hanging on his back like a backpack, her thin arms straining around his throat like twin pieces of twine.

Magnus hurriedly passes off the little girl he’d been carrying. She wraps her arms around Alec’s neck, tiny toes curling into his shirt, just above his bellybutton. With the two he has on his hips, Alec is starting to feel like an over-decorated Christmas tree.

“Get them to safety,” Magnus says, and rips a portal into existence. It bathes the underground railroad in hues of gold.

Every cell in Alec’s body screams to stay with Magnus, who is pale even in the warm light of his magic and whose right shirtsleeve is saturated with blood. But he is weaponless, and they have four kids to think about. He’s the one who has to go.

“Keep the portal open,” he says. “I’m coming back for you.”

Magnus’s eyes soften. He opens his mouth, just as something shimmers at the end of the tunnel.

“Go,” he says and turns towards the demon, magic flaring in his hands.

It feels like cleaving himself in two, but Alec turns around and launches himself through the portal.

Everyone in Ops stare at him as he comes through, the children latched onto him like an extra layer of clothing. Jace and Clary, standing by one of the monitors, both go wide-eyed.

“Izzy?” he demands into the stunned silence, only for the familiar sharp click of heels to announce her arrival.

“Right here, herma—” She trails off at the sight of him.

“My spare bow,” he says, and she turns on her heels and disappears towards the armory without a word.

“Alec,” Jace says, gaping at him. “What the he—”

“Language,” he chides automatically.

“Hello there,” Clary says, approaching them. She tilts her head down to the boy perched on Alec’s right hip and smiles. “I like your horns. They’re really cool.”

“This is Clary and Jace,” Alec says to the kids, trying to keep his voice low and soothing despite the portal twisting behind him as if urging him to hurry. “They’ll stay with you while we contact your parents, okay?”

He catches Underhill’s eye and the man immediately starts issuing the order.

“I don’t know about you,” Clary says to the kids in a conspiratorial whisper. “But I’m craving some hot cocoa. Wanna come help me make some? I think we have some cookies, too.”

The children, half-starved and shivering from their captivity, all nod excitedly.

Alec hands over the girl on his left hip to Jace’s unsuspecting hands, and then crouches so that the two clinging to his neck can let go.

“Organize a perimeter around the abandoned subway station on South Fourth Street,” he says. “I need to get back to Magnus—”

Three things happen simultaneously.

Izzy comes running into Ops, his spare bow in hand.

The Institute flares red, the alarm blaring through the speakers.

The portal behind him vanishes.

For a second, all Alec does is stare at the empty space. Then he snatches his bow from Izzy’s hands and rushes from the Institute.

He doesn’t need to ask where the alarm came from.

…

The tunnel is silent when he makes it back. He follows their tracks, from the lair where they found the kids and the maze of tunnels that followed their escape from the demon. Every step is a crack of sound through the stillness, but being careful is the furthest thing from his mind.

He rounds the corner to the dead end, arrow notched. His Nyx rune is still burning on his arm, and it isn’t long until he spots a familiar figure, slumped against the tunnel wall.

His heart lurches.

“Magnus!”

Rocks slice through his pants and shins but he barely notices the sting when he slides to his knees in front of dazed golden eyes, bow clattering to the ground.

“Oh,” Magnus sighs, voice hoarse. “You came back.”

Alec’s smile feels tight.

“Told you I would.” He cups his boyfriend’s neck, dismayed at the clamminess of his skin. “Are you okay? When the portal closed, I thought…”

He doesn’t want to revisit what he’d imagined had happened.

“Not that easy to get rid of,” Magnus reminds him with a hint of teasing. He leans into Alec’s palm. “I’m all right. Just drained.”

Alec knows that isn’t true. He can smell the tang of blood, even through the coating of demonic residue in the air. He opens his mouth, but Magnus beats him to it.

“The children?”

“With Clary and Izzy. The Institute is reaching out to their families. They’re safe.”

Magnus nods tiredly.

“Good.”

Alec leans their foreheads together and closes his eyes.

“Take my strength,” he mumbles, and Magnus sighs against him. He can feel Jace moving in, a few minutes out, no doubt with a team of Shadowhunters on his heel, and he already knows that the amount of work waiting for him back at the Institute won’t see him leave his office until well past the sun has risen.

But, for now, they breathe.


	27. Ransom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** None.

“One favor,” the demon says, talons digging into Alec’s scalp. “And I’ll release him.”

From his position on the floor, Alec is close to eye-level with Magnus’s hands, and he doesn’t miss how they twitch, curling into loose fists, before they relax again. He wants to tell his husband that he’s okay, wants to jerk away from the demon’s grip in his hair. But the smoke crammed into his mouth and curled around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides, makes sound and movement equally as impossible. All he can do is plead with his eyes for Magnus _not_ to agree to the demon’s terms.

Except that, aside from that first brief glance of startled terror, Magnus hasn’t looked at him once since he came into the loft’s living-room to find Alec shackled to a demon who had presented itself as Azra, descendent of Azazel.

Magnus hums.

“What kind of favor?”

Sometimes, Alec forgets how long Magnus has been negotiating with demons, how long he’s been making deals with them. The air around him exudes boredom, and the annoyance of someone who, after a long day, comes home to find the cat having dragged in a dead rodent into the house.

But they’ve been married for four years. Alec knows what his husband looks like when he’s afraid and trying not to show it.

“Does it matter?” Azra asks. It trails a sharp nail down Alec’s cheek, splitting the skin. Magnus’s eyes flash gold, drawing a chuckle from the demon. “I suspect not. No, the nature of this favor is for me to decide, and for you to carry out. Refuse, and the pretty Nephilim will be dead before you have the chance to even think of summoning your magic.”

Magnus’s jaw clenches.

Alec knows what he’s going to do, because it’s exactly what _he_ would do if the roles were reversed, but he still chokes on a smoke-filled protest when Magnus’s shoulders slump.

“No children,” he says, and it sounds too much like pleading.

“You’re hardly in any position to make demands,” Azra says, and Alec can hear that it’s smiling. “But very well. I’ll grant your request.”

The air thickens until a draft knocks into Alec’s back, so violent he would’ve fallen on his face if not for the chains of fog keeping him in place.

_Portal._

“After you,” Azra says, motioning at Magnus.

His husband doesn’t move an inch.

“Release him.”

The demon tuts.

“You banished your own father—twice, I believe—killed Lilith, and destroyed a hell dimension. No, the Nephilim will be released when you have fulfilled your end of the deal.” Those talons scrape across Alec’s skull again and he gags on the smoke in his mouth. “As long as he doesn’t struggle too much,” a sharp tug, “and as long as you don’t try to weasel your way out of our agreement, he’ll still be in one piece when you return. You have my word.”

Magnus’s eyes flicker to him and, in that moment, Alec doesn’t need words to hear what he’s saying.

_I’m sorry._

_I love you._

_Don’t come after me._

Then Magnus strides past him without another glance. The claws release his hair.

Silence.

The moment he’s alone, Alec renews his struggles against the bonds. But the more he fights, the thicker the smoke seems to grow around him, until black dots invade his vision. It stings, as if there are hidden embers in its obsidian depths—embers that flare into flames, singeing his skin, the more he tries to break free.

Anxiety burns through him, but his situation is painfully clear: there is nothing he can do but wait.

He watches the shadows stretch towards him across the floor as hours tick by. His knees ache so much they feel liquid, his spine squeezed so tightly it feels like it could snap. Sulfur is a cloying mist in his mouth, coating his tongue almost all the way to the root.

The sun has just fallen below the horizon when the smoke around him evaporates, so suddenly that he falls forward onto red, blistering forearms, gasping. His throat is raw, as if he’s had hot coals in his mouth for hours, and every bone in his body feels like it’s made of water, but he pushes himself up on unsteady legs, because Magnus—

A portal tears through the living-room.

Alec doesn’t know what he expected—blood, ripped clothing, ruffled hair—but it definitely wasn’t for Magnus to step out of the portal looking like he’d been out on a lunch date with Catarina, not spending the afternoon with the descendent of a Greater Demon. His shoulders are straight, his head held high, eyes calm and unreadable. He looks every inch the unflappable, indestructible warlock that he is known to be.

When his gaze locks on Alec, though, the façade crumbles.

Alec erases the distance between them with four quick, stumbling strides and pulls Magnus into his arms. His husband clings to him just as tightly, breath shuddering into Alec’s throat in something that sounds suspiciously like a sob.

“It’s okay, I got you, you’re okay, you’re okay.”

Alec doesn’t know how long they stand there until his legs, still weak, give out. Magic wraps around them like a cocoon, lowering them to the floor. It washes through Alec with such force that it leaves every neuron in his body tingling.

He shakes his head.

“Magnus, I’m okay, you don’t have to—”

“Please,” Magnus breathes into his neck, hoarse, and Alec stills. “Just let me… Let me do something good. Please.”

Alec closes his eyes against the sorrow blurring his vision and tightens his hold.

“Okay.”


	28. Beaten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Self-harm in the form of excessive training.
> 
> I know this scenario has been written a zillion times already, but this is me, putting my two cents in.

The sound of flesh hitting a body of leather-covered sand reaches Magnus’s ears long before he enters the training room.

His heart sinks. He isn’t surprised, but he’d still hoped to be wrong.

The room is dark, but Magnus doesn’t need light to make out the lone figure attacking the punching bag as if wanting to bore a hole right through it. But it’s not the bag that is splitting at the seams—Magnus can’t see Alec’s hands, but he can hear the slick sound that follows every punch, and bile crowds up his throat.

Magnus knows the pitfalls of taking on too much, of caring too deeply—of wanting to be everything for everyone all at once. He knows the self-loathing that creeps in when you inevitably fail. He’s had centuries of trying to find a balance between giving and giving _too much_, and he still falls short, sometimes. Alec is only twenty-six. He’s learning to be kinder and more forgiving to himself, but it’s slow going, relearning years of conditioned behavior, and it’s all too easy to fall back into bad habits when life keeps handing you one disaster after another.

One particularly vicious punch jars Magnus from his quiet contemplation. He’s pretty sure he hears bones break, but Alec’s face remains blank, not even a ripple of a reaction marring his features.

Magnus prides himself on being able to keep a level head in a moment of crisis—but he’s never been good at seeing the people he cares about in pain.

He takes a step further into the room.

“Alexander.”

He’s in Alec’s field of vision, but his husband shows no sign of having heard him, and he doesn’t slow in his assault—if anything, his hits increase in ferocity. Magnus doesn’t know what’s worse: Alec shutting him out, or Alec being so lost in his pain that he genuinely isn’t aware of him being there.

Then, delivering one final punch that vibrates through Magnus’s own body, Alec slumps forward against the punching bag, forehead pressed into the leather and arms hanging limply at his sides, panting.

Magnus’s steps echo in the sudden absence of violence. As he nears, his eyes are immediately drawn to his husband’s hands.

They look like someone has taken a meat tenderizer to them, a mesh of blood and loose, pink skin. Three of the fingers are clearly either broken or dislocated—but what turns Magnus’s stomach is the glimpse of white he can see through the crimson.

“I’m sorry.” Alec’s voice sounds like his hands look: raw and split open. His cheeks are flushed, but Magnus can’t tell if it’s from exertion, shame, or both.

“Darling,” he says softly. “You don’t ever have to apologize for hurting.”

“I just… I’m so _tired_, Magnus,” Alec breathes into the silence, like it’s the most shameful of secrets.

Breathing has never hurt this much.

“I know, my love,” Magnus murmurs. “I know. But you are not alone. It will be all right. _You_ will be all right."

He offers a hand, palm up.

“Let me help you?”

For a second, he thinks Alec is going to say no, but then he pushes himself into standing, new wells of blood trickling over his knuckles, and offers Magnus his hands. The hazels looking out from behind heavy eyelids are dull and wet.

Magnus swallows and cradles the mangled appendages in his palms, careful not to cause his husband even the slightest amount of discomfort. There’s been too much pain in his life already.

“Sorry,” Alec mutters again, watching vacantly as blue sweeps over his hands, readjusting bones and knitting skin back together.

“No need to be sorry,” Magnus shushes him. His magic finishes the healing, but he doesn’t let go of Alec’s hands, thumbs caressing the now unmarred skin. “How about we go home, take a shower, or maybe a bath, and call it an early night?”

He squeezes Alec’s hands.

“Let me take the reins for a while, hm?”

Alec’s shoulders slump. He nods and Magnus smiles at him despite the ache in his heart.

His husband will ruin himself trying to be everywhere at once, trying to be what everyone else needs him to be, and he’ll do it willingly, gladly—he’ll bruise and bleed and break until there is nothing of _Alec_ left to salvage, because that’s what he’s been taught, that his suffering is worth more than his happiness.

Luckily for them all, Magnus is not about to let that happen.


	29. Numb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Deals with depression.
> 
> Another Alec Lightwood And His Crappy Mental Health -piece. It's the mood I was in today, it seems.

In hindsight, the signs had been obvious. They always are. Somehow, that doesn’t make them any easier to spot.

Alec watches his husband sleeping next to him, all golden skin and soft angles, and doesn’t feel anything. He’s an empty vessel, untouched by the light emanating from the bed’s other occupant. He wants to shuffle closer, but his limbs don’t work the way they’re supposed to. It’s just as well. The light would only burn anyway.

He feels like he’s drowning from the inside. Like he’s swallowing half an ocean for every breath he takes.

It’s like a wound that keeps reopening.

It feels like failure. No matter how familiar he is with this particular enemy, it still manages to sneak up on him, every time, and he always loses. For every step he takes, it knocks him back to the person he used to be, wiping out all the progress he has made throughout the years, and obscuring the path he took to get where he is today—where he’s _happy_.

Happy.

The concept feels foreign to him now.

He stares at the sheets without really seeing them, shimmering waves of gold in the sunlight, until a ringed hand appears in his line of sight and gives his own hand a cautionary squeeze. 

Magnus doesn’t say anything, just starts circling his thumb over the back of Alec’s hand. It’s not enough to bring him back, to pierce through the haze, but it’s something to focus on other than the big empty.

He wants to feel it. Wants it so bad that his eyes burn.

He swallows.

“I think.” His voice cracks in the silence. “I think I’m gonna stay home today.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Magnus says softly. “Do you want me to call Isabelle? Let her know?”

“Yeah. Just.” His lungs feel like two pieces of wrung-out cloth, shivering in the wind. Like he’s been sprinting through a marathon. “Stay?”

Magnus squeezes his hand again.

“Of course, Alexander.”

He’s lying at the bottom of the ocean and he doesn’t know how to find his way back to the surface. Doesn’t have the energy to even try.

But he knows that, even if it takes him months, Magnus will be there, waiting for him when he does.


	30. Recovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Is blindness a trigger? Cuz, yeah. Blindness in this chapter.

“There you are.”

Magnus startles at the mumbled words. The vial slips from his fingers and crashes onto the floor. Distantly, he notes with relief that at least it hadn’t contained anything dangerous. More prominently, however, is frustration.

“Shit,” Alec says, sounding much more awake now. “Sorry.”

Magnus takes a calming breath.

“It’s quite all right, Alexander.” He turns in Alec’s general direction and plasters on a smile that must look as forced as it feels. Not that he would know. “Nothing that isn’t easily replaced.”

He raises his hands automatically, magic tingling over his skin, only to halt. He can feel the shards spread out on the floorboards, some embedded in the carpet. He knows where they are. But his magic is skittish, feeding off his insecurity, off how unbalanced and adrift he feels, and he swallows around the lump of agitation in his throat.

It’s unlikely anything bad would happen; but, with Alexander in the room, he’s not about to take the risk.

He lowers his hands and clears his throat.

“Is it morning?” He aims for offhand but it rings so false he barely keeps himself from cringing. He tries not to think about what he must look like, standing frozen in the middle of the apothecary. He knows it’s only Alec, but not being able to confirm the absence of pity on his face…

“Just a little after four,” Alec says. “I woke up and you weren’t there.”

He doesn’t sound mad, but Magnus still winces. He can all too easily picture it, Alec turning over in bed, reaching for him and only finding cool sheets. Of course he’d drag himself out of bed and in search of him, even though he isn’t supposed to.

“What are you doing in here?” Alec asks before Magnus can apologize.

He waves a hand.

“Well, I had set today aside for some inventory. The world doesn’t stop turning just because…”

He trails off.

Cotton sweeps over wood as Alec shuffles a few steps into the room.

“Anything I can help with? I could put on coffee, order some takeout, if you want? There’s this one place on Canal Street that’s open twenty-four seven, if you’re in the mood for bagels.”

Alec’s voice is casual, as if this is just another one of their all-nighters, and Magnus appreciates that even more than the offer itself—despite how part of him rages at the implication that he isn’t capable of doing those things himself.

But he’s more focused on the falter he’d heard in Alec’s steps.

He presses his lips together.

“You shouldn’t be up, Alec. If that leg is to heal properly, you need to rest.”

A former Circle member had plunged her sword into Alec’s thigh with such force it splintered the bone. It was the last thing Magnus had seen, before…

“So do you,” Alec says. His voice is soft with concern and understanding.

Magnus twists his head away from him. He wants to pace, to stride past Alec and into the living-room and pour himself something a lot stronger than what would be advisable, even for someone with his metabolism. But he refuses to make even more of a spectacle of himself. The last thing he wants is for Alec to pity him.

“I’m fine.” He shrugs. “And besides, my—_predicament_ won’t solve itself quicker if I take it easy.”

“You’re not ‘fine,’” Alec says, and Magnus definitely doesn’t need sight to know that his boyfriend is frowning. “You’re exhausted. The way you’re using magic, you’ll make yourself sick.”

The air moves with a puff of sandalwood and traces of Alec’s cologne. Still, Magnus can’t quite hold back a flinch when tentative fingers encircle his arm.

“Come back to bed? This can wait.”

“How long?” Magnus explodes. He yanks himself free of Alec’s hold, and the unmoored feeling that rocks into him and makes him sway only feeds his frustration. “It’s been _four days_, Alec.”

Catarina had told him that it would take time, but she didn’t know how much. _Be patient_, she’d told him, but Magnus knows her, and what that tight ripple of tension in her voice meant.

It would take time—if it healed at all.

Magnus has always been broken—but before, at least he could pretend that it was an eccentric personality trait rather than the truth.

The pads of Alec’s fingers, hardened from a lifetime of archery, brush underneath his closed eyes. He opens them, but it’s just as dark as behind his closed lids.

“I can’t see,” he whispers. It’s the first time he’s said it out loud and the full force of it rattles his core. This is not just a loss of one of his senses. It won’t only affect his role as High Warlock, or his fashion choices.

If he never regains his sight, will he still remember the shade of pink of Alec’s cheeks when he’s flustered? Will he remember if it’s the left or the right corner of his mouth that quirks up when he’s amused and trying not to show it? Will he remember the expressions that go with _those_ noises when they’re having sex? Will he remember how much green is in his eyes?

Is eight months’ worth of memories all he’s going to get?

“I can’t see you,” he says, and his voice sounds as raw as he feels. “I can’t see you. Alec, what if—”

“Hey,” Alec shushes him. His fingers nudge the back of Magnus’s head, guiding their foreheads together. “I know. But I’m still here. I’ll always be here. We’ll get through this, together.”

He’s tired—tired and terrified and _blind_, but with the heat of Alec’s skin on his own, with the sound of his breathing and the smell of him so close, and then with his lips capturing Magnus’s own, Magnus has to believe that this, what they have, what they are, is enough.

That, no matter what happens, they’ll be okay.


	31. Embrace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Additional warnings:** Double character death ahoy.
> 
> There was only ever one way this prompt was gonna go, y'all.

Alec sees himself dressed in muted gold, striding down the altar at the Institute, renouncing his old life and beginning a new one as he grabs Magnus by the lapels and kisses him.

_That’s what choosing happiness looks like_, he thinks.

“Best decision of my life,” he mumbles.

Curled into his side, Magnus doesn’t say anything. Instead, the scene before them changes to show the two of them in a lavishly decorated Institute, surrounded by flowers and smiling family members. They’re holding hands, and the way they look at each other displays exactly the kind of love Alec never thought he’d have.

He swipes his thumb over both of their wedding rings, their fingers loosely tangled in his lap. The metal is crusted and damp to the touch.

“Best moment of my life,” he whispers.

Magnus hums. Alec can’t see the lower half of his face from this angle, but he sounds like he’s smiling. The knowledge settles in his chest like one of those hot massage stones.

The _sakura_ trees of Meguro River spread out around them, a cocoon of pink and purple so bright the flowers almost look white. The hues reflect on the water’s surface like spilt buckets of dye, sprinkled with stardust.

Alec’s lips twitch.

“Didn’t think we’d actually get there.” They had been about to so many times, but new disasters sprouted up like weed seemingly every week until Alec had finally had enough and arranged for Catarina to portal the two of them to Tokyo for their honeymoon—much to Magnus’s fond amusement.

The memory shows them walking hand in hand past a trinket shop selling colorful pieces of brocaded silk decorated with swirling patterns.

Alec’s smile dims. His thumb brushes Magnus’s knuckles. Frayed thread peers out through the cracks.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work,” he whispers. He’d wanted to buy Magnus a new one, but his husband had insisted that the _omamori_ he already had contained all the luck and protection he’d ever need.

“Of course it did,” Magnus murmurs, more breath than sound. “I have you. I could never have gotten luckier.”

Alec’s fingers twitch against Magnus’s waist, wanting to pull him closer, but his Strength rune faded hours ago.

The landscape before them ripples as Magnus shudders.

“You should let go,” Alec mumbles into his hair. “I’ll find you.”

He can feel Magnus smiling against his throat. It’s easy, to focus on the feel of Magnus’s lips on his skin instead of the bark digging into his back and the cold seeping through him.

“I know. I love you, Alexander.”

“I love you, too, Magnus.”

The scene flickers out. Instead of a blossoming canopy of cherry trees, a bleak, pre-dawn sky stretches out above them. The Meguro River transforms into a field of bodies in various stages of decay, the once-green grass now brown with upturned dirt and spilt blood.

All except for one lone flower which peeks up through the ground, unbothered by the destruction it finds itself in, its petals a deep blue that highlights the bright gold ovule. One last drop of life.

In Alec’s arms, Magnus has gone still. The shallow puffs of air against his throat have ceased.

“Magnus?” he murmurs.

No answer.

Alec closes his eyes with a sigh. The air is cold and reeks of burnt flesh and mildew, but his final breath smells only of sandalwood.

On the horizon, the sun begins its ascent, sweeping gold through the glade. The flower greets its arrival, swaying in the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU a million times over to everyone who has read, kudoed, and commented on this work. Your support, encouragement, love (and, above all, your heartbreak) gave me the energy and motivation necessary to complete this challenge. I hope you've enjoyed (word choice??) this journey as much as I have. I love you all <3


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